HeavenlyPossum on Nostr: Have you ever wondered why we use money for, like, everything? Economics text books ...
Have you ever wondered why we use money for, like, everything?
Economics text books will sing the praises of money. It’s a store of value! It’s a unit of account! It’s a medium of exchange!
These are all true, but don’t really explain why money is so insidiously pervasive in virtually every aspect of life.
Many of those same economics text books will hand-wave this away. Either money is so self-evidently good and useful that it requires no further explanation, or money is a solution to the mythical problem of the inefficient “barter society,” solving the double coincidence of wants.
But all of that misses the most essential characteristic of our society: hierarchical power.
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Economics text books will sing the praises of money. It’s a store of value! It’s a unit of account! It’s a medium of exchange!
These are all true, but don’t really explain why money is so insidiously pervasive in virtually every aspect of life.
Many of those same economics text books will hand-wave this away. Either money is so self-evidently good and useful that it requires no further explanation, or money is a solution to the mythical problem of the inefficient “barter society,” solving the double coincidence of wants.
But all of that misses the most essential characteristic of our society: hierarchical power.
1/