We’ve demonstrated in recent articles how money drives everything, i.e. nothing changes until money changes.
Monetisation of Human Activity
Money dictates Human Activity, as explained by Taxonomy of Money. Not only does money hide the value of Need but through the obfuscation of human values into proxy resources, money misdirects the focus of Human Activity, i.e. consumption and production. (See the previous article on Divine Money).
There is both an environmental and human cost to this misdirection. The former, we’ll leave for another article to focus initially on the latter.
Money has skewed the balance of production and services because exogenous money (money created externally, by a third party) incentivises the maximisation of exchange value at the expense of satisfying human Need.
The short-side principle tends to limit creation in order to maximise the exchange value. Exogenous money, i.e. money that must be obtained from an external source, is only available for human activities that can demonstrate a clear, future exchange value.
All investment, into projects and enterprises, is subject to evaluation by criteria such as return on investment (RoI) and discounted cash flow (DCF). The projected returns need to exceed the cost of “capital”, proxy resources (see the beginning of this section), in addition to providing sufficient profit to remunerate those involved in the activity(ies).
The time value ascribed to exogenous money exacerbates the plight of those wanting to create and exchange because the cost of “capital” is increased by the rate of interest charged in proportion to the time for which the “capital” is needed. There is often criticism of “short term thinking” which is an inevitable consequence of interest on money.
Money is the driver of innovation and entrepreneurship. Thus, only those innovations and projects which exceed these financial hurdles are considered.
They are backed only if they comply with the structural incentives to feed the status quo, thereby tightening the grip of structural control that leads inevitably to genocide and destruction. Everything that may illuminate or relieve our plight is rejected, irrespective of its merits.
One only has to think of the work of Nikola Telsa who died forgotten while, everyday, we enjoy just a few of the phenomena and benefits he identified and exploited. Among his many discoveries, Tesla revealed the source of “free” energy available from the ionosphere at little environmental or human cost. Why isn’t this technology all around us today? Because, at the time, money determined that there was no opportunity for “profits” a.k.a. swag, loot, plunder. No doubt today’s structure would have found a way to monetise Telsa’s work, if necessary, while tightening its grip. The structure has evolved rapidly in the last 20 years.
Innovation and entrepreneurship is focused on “success” in terms of money; this inevitably results in plunder, destruction and human suffering.
We remain oblivious to innovation and potential for enterprise that is suppressed by money. We are applying 20th century thinking to problems that have persisted since the invention of money. In the 21st century, we have access to tools to both understand our predicament and how to escape it.
Competition, planned obsolescence, waste, destruction and the human cost arising therefrom are a product of how we think about money. Current innovations in money can reveal and undo the century of conditioning that turned our Need(s) into desire(s).
Desire has twisted our perceptions of value, leading to obsession with money,
that is mistaken for wealth or value, its acquisition and preservation.
Wealth Management
Through the exchange value of money, many humans have lost sight of their Need(s) which have been usurped by conditioned desire.
There are numerous perverse consequences that arise from our misunderstanding of money and its effects.
Those involved in “wealth management”, that appropriates value from those to whom it rightfully belongs, are oblivious to their complicity in these crimes because they have no context within which to see that “wealth management” is contradictory to human values. Consequently, they are damaging themselves by focusing on money as the “proxy” for their real Need(s).
Artist Laurie Anderson explains the central theme of George WS Trow’s book “Within the Context of No Context” In essence, we are lost and deluded because we live in the “foreground”, oblivious to what extends all around us but out of sight for many because they’ve lost the desire to know.
So called “conspiracy theorists” have not just the desire to know but, for us, it is a fundamental human compulsion to discover truth.
To remind ourselves, we are farmed as human livestock, no matter how far up the “food chain” we exist. At the risk of boring those who regularly read these articles, we are working for our own enslavement and destruction. “We” includes all those working in “wealth management” and the institutions of money.
Institutions Versus the Institutionalised
It is vital, especially for those who work in the institutional hierarchies of money, to realise that there are two fundamental components of institutional hierarchies:
- humans
- structure
It is the structure that initiated and facilitated the current state of affairs. Humans are the cogs and fuel that drive the machine, the global political economy.
The structure dictates how humans think and behave which is why so few realise what’s happening. However, within these structures, humans are lifting their heads above their parapets of trained ignorance to identify other curious minds and to share information and ideas. Both inside and outside institutions, people are co-creating an understanding of reality that exposes how we are farmed.
We are farmed by the very institutions to which many of us have been loyal. These are victims of Stockholm Syndrome.
We should view them as such, victims like the rest of us but with the distinction of being held hostage to money and its institutions.
The death of current money and these institutions will have no impact on humans. Rather, humans can be liberated to explore their full potential.
Innovators and entrepreneurs can have unfettered access to resources to co-create solutions to current problems while laying the foundations for the new political economy.
Enterprise in the New Political Economy
There is no “passive” investment in enterprise within an economic system driven by Use Value.
“Shareholding” or participation is represented by the Tokens held by individuals throughout the distributed network of endogenous ledger systems. Further information on how this works is in The Future of Money.
New co-creative structures will evolve to replace the dying institutions. Co-creative development is integral to endogenous tokenisation.
Climbing the Wrong Mountain
THE WRONG MOUNTAIN
There was a man,
who could have been
any of us and probably is,
who after a long arduous ascent
full of grit and sacrifice,
glanced back across the horizon,
only to realise that he had
climbed the wrong mountain.
Nic Askew
But it’s never too late to start again!
Exogenous money sent humans up the wrong mountain and successive generations have followed.
We are the generations that can replace the structure that led us to this point of existential crisis, not only to alleviate immediate distress but to establish firm foundations of endogenous tokens for a fair, flourishing and resilient, global political economy .
There Is Nothing To Fear
Those working in banking and financial services may be horrified by the dawning realisation that neither are required in an endogenous token environment because people won’t need “money”.
What is needed is the expertise and infrastructure to facilitate endogenous token systems.
Transaction volumes will be much greater than today because 7.8 billion people will gain the ability to access Tokens to satisfy their Needs and provide them with Capacity to Create.
Meanwhile, exogenous money is taking us to a much scarier destination – people being unable to fulfil their Needs. In the absence of many people being unable to fulfil their basic Needs, some (or even many), will likely resort to violence.
Crucially, the switch to endogenous tokens will liberate everyone to concentrate on what interests and rewards them spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically.
*Disclosure: I was engaged in wealth management, investment banking and financial services for over 30 years before I embarked on my journey of discovery in 2012. I remain a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (CISI) primarily to share our work with some of those working within the institutions of money. “Letting go” of fear and money has liberated me to pursue my search for truth which rewards me spiritually, intellectually, psychologically and physically.