On forgetting that money is a token of exchange ...

On of the things a lot of people seem to forget is that modern money is a token system - money is a series of tokens with ascribed (officially, unofficially, or a mixture of both) values: that is, a $10 (polymeric, here in Australia) note represents $10 of value - it is not, these days, something with $10 of actual value, although that may have been the case centuries or millennia ago. 

When economists get excited about the flow of money (“financial energy”, in a sense), I suspect that they sometimes lose sight of the token for value of a hypothetical exchange aspect. 

Getting excited about numbers, rather than what they mean (especially for everyday people living everyday lives), and intellectually pleasing (to their intellect) theories, is part of the reason we have: 

• misconceptions that big profits mean something good for “people” because it is good for the stock market, partly because the stock market forms a disconnect between the lives of everyday people and those using the stock market;
  

• a failure to notice that the “trickle down” fantasy doesn’t work; and
  

• the socially destructive misconception that less tax means more money, which ignores the fact that direct income and tax are not the only issues - there is also the possibility of companies paying directly for work matters,which means the benefit for the worker is 100% rather than whatever their top marginal tax rate is.
  

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.