Economics
Dear All,
Currently reading Kissinger's "Does America Need a Foreign Policy?". I was doing fine with the global interrelations of power and politics. Some really great ideas on Latin America and Europe. The Asia stuff is eye opening as well. I ran into a wall though. Economic interrelations between countries and regions. Ok, you all know me. I am good at a lot of things. But one of the things I am not good at is economics. Money, so long as it is in small amounts and mine is fine. But conceptuallizing money on a grand scale gives me a major head-ache. It always seems so strange and flighty to me. I mean I never really understood how money got its value in the first place. I mean I understand the basic concept, people make things and decide to trade them to people who make different things (my wheat for your shovel). So a standard of value is created to make both happy (I give you x bushles of wheat for y shovels.). Ok so eventually people are sick of carrying around the things that they want to barter so they invent a marker of some kind to carry. This marker represents a certain amount of something (big red shell = 100 bushles of wheat). So I give you a marker for your marker and then we trade the actual items later. A short time later people say hey lets just trade a marker for the actual thing. From this money is born. Originally money was tied to a thing of inherent (if you like shiny) value (gold!!). Later we went from a gold standard to well a trust standard. So now our money (which is just a fancy marker for something of actual value) is based on a moral value.
Wait didn't I hear that money and morals don't go together? Then how does this whole thing work? Lets take a page from Spinoza (one of my least favorite philosophers but hey)
Given:
Power corrupts (in a direct or squared relation, so lots of power = lots of corruption)
Money is power
Money (currently) is based on trust
Trust is a moral principle
Then:
Money corrupts
and Money is based on a moral principle
We come to the conclusion that something based on a moral principle corrupts?This bothers me a lot. Moral principles are supposed to improve our relations with each other, not harm them. Arguements can be made for money helping and harming the flow of humanity and people as individuals. Where do you (my readers) weigh in on this?
Currently reading Kissinger's "Does America Need a Foreign Policy?". I was doing fine with the global interrelations of power and politics. Some really great ideas on Latin America and Europe. The Asia stuff is eye opening as well. I ran into a wall though. Economic interrelations between countries and regions. Ok, you all know me. I am good at a lot of things. But one of the things I am not good at is economics. Money, so long as it is in small amounts and mine is fine. But conceptuallizing money on a grand scale gives me a major head-ache. It always seems so strange and flighty to me. I mean I never really understood how money got its value in the first place. I mean I understand the basic concept, people make things and decide to trade them to people who make different things (my wheat for your shovel). So a standard of value is created to make both happy (I give you x bushles of wheat for y shovels.). Ok so eventually people are sick of carrying around the things that they want to barter so they invent a marker of some kind to carry. This marker represents a certain amount of something (big red shell = 100 bushles of wheat). So I give you a marker for your marker and then we trade the actual items later. A short time later people say hey lets just trade a marker for the actual thing. From this money is born. Originally money was tied to a thing of inherent (if you like shiny) value (gold!!). Later we went from a gold standard to well a trust standard. So now our money (which is just a fancy marker for something of actual value) is based on a moral value.
Wait didn't I hear that money and morals don't go together? Then how does this whole thing work? Lets take a page from Spinoza (one of my least favorite philosophers but hey)
Given:
Power corrupts (in a direct or squared relation, so lots of power = lots of corruption)
Money is power
Money (currently) is based on trust
Trust is a moral principle
Then:
Money corrupts
and Money is based on a moral principle
We come to the conclusion that something based on a moral principle corrupts?This bothers me a lot. Moral principles are supposed to improve our relations with each other, not harm them. Arguements can be made for money helping and harming the flow of humanity and people as individuals. Where do you (my readers) weigh in on this?