Sunday, July 31, 2011

Monetisation





The transition from a society based on gifts
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Through the stages of barter
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Commodity currencies
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Precious metals
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And the present-day financial system
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Has taken thousands of years in some places
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And has been introduced quite suddenly in others.
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It continues to this day:
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More and more of our human abilities, skills, relationships, and culture are becoming the subject of property and therefore of money.
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We are in fact nearing the culmination of a vast historical process:
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The conversion into financial capital of a variety of other forms of wealth that were never before the subject of purchase, sale, and ownership,
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That were never before associated with money
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But were instead held in common, by a community or a society—the commonwealth.
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As they become monetized, the money-associated qualities of anonymity, scarcity, and alienation encroach ever-further on those remaining areas of human beingness where the dynamics of the gift still hold.
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The monetization process is inexorable
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Unstoppable
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Because greed increases until it consumes itself
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Until it breaks down that is
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The increasing power of those who have continues
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The increasing desperation of those who have not grows
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Ergo conflict
.
The current situation cannot be sustained without increasing alienation and violence
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And that is what is happening right now

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