The Pains of a Moneyed Society
“If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that. Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.”
- 1 Timothy 6:8–10 (New American Bible: Catholic Readers Edition)
War. Theft. Inflation. Bankruptcy. Unemployment. Poverty. Unjustified punishment. Corruption. Fraud. Shortage. Famine. Taxes. Death. Extinction. You are likely concerned about some, if not all, of these problems. They have continued for years — decades — centuries — millennia. The world has about half a billion underweight people [1] despite having enough food to feed 11 billion people [2]. Even the United States of America, one of the richest countries in the world per person, has over half a million homeless people [3] despite having over 11 million vacant homes [4]. People are not the only organisms suffering; over 1 million species are going totally extinct [5]. Something has gone horribly wrong. Something ruins our relationships. Something has corrupted our society.
Indeed, it is only ONE thing: exchange. It’s the establishment of debt through trade as measured by money. You see, when you need something in modern society, you usually must trade for it. If you cannot give that compensation in money, a desired object, or a promise thereof, you do not receive it; no matter how much you might need what you seek. In many cases, such as housing, health care, and highest education, prices tend to overwhelm consumers. Oddly enough, the need for money itself is a redundant feedback loop; you need money because your suppliers need money because THEIR suppliers need money, and so on. There must be a reason for this insane flow.
When a modern business receives money or some other benefit, that business has surplus value, also known as proceeds. Surplus value is the difference between what the business received (or will receive) from consumers and what it gave (or will give) to suppliers in order to produce/operate. Those proceeds are sometimes spent by investing in physical assets (e.g. land, buildings, and machines) to produce more, but they can also be returned to the people who financed the business as profits. This is the core of capitalism, listed in the order of a Statement of Cash Flows [5] according to International Financial Reporting Standards. These financiers — also known as bourgeoisie or shareholders — fund businesses with the expectation that they will receive more in eventual profit than they spent on the initial investment. This means that every capitalist business tries to make as much profit as possible for the foreseeable future, by generating the highest revenues possible from consumers in excess of the cost of supplies. This habit makes businesses, consumers, and their suppliers disagree, and that creates all kinds of conflict.
Think of a starving person. Unable or unpermitted to reach a farm, they go to a marketplace and cannot get food. Maybe natural events have caused a famine. Maybe the government has blocked that person’s racial or religious group from reaching food. Or maybe the very suppliers of food decide that the best way to maximize proceeds is to leave them out. Their prices have inflated so much that although starving people are unable to afford the new prices, those who can pay them are generating enough profit for the business regardless. Sad and desperate, the starving people seek any way to fix this problem. They might harass, steal, or even kill to stay alive. Because they feel insecure, they listen to any loud speaker who strongly casts blame:
“That leader is at fault!”
“That cultural group is at fault!”
“That nation is at fault!”
Hatred booms, and desperate people fight others who might be suffering just like them. Then, a cycle of revenge ensues between their forces and their rivals in lieu of win-win arrangements.
When businesses only operate to create as much profit as possible, they couldn’t care less about the resulting wreckage. We are threatened by the war industry that gets payments from hatred-fueled governments over and over again. The largest of these governments don’t just bomb other countries, leaving doomed wastelands, but also stockpile nuclear weapons that can do vastly more damage if unleashed. Oil, coal, and natural gas corporations also demolish the earth by yanking out valuable fossil fuels. Then, ecosystems full of animals and plants in those extraction sites collapse. Consumers keep using pollutive modes of commuting, warmth, and other energy instead of better, healthier alternatives. And worst of all, the burned fuels create a chaotic, climate-changing greenhouse effect by trapping the sun’s heat within our atmosphere. Pollution in general is more lucrative than recycling and resource conservation, so it continues. These industries of war and fossil fuels crumble our world and endanger us so much that we might all die off in a century in the absence of some miracle of biology. Greed prevents us from avoiding existential threats.
Of course, smaller problems come from our capitalist economy based on increasing revenues and/or reducing expenses. Wages and salaries have stagnated because they don’t increase the ruling investors’ bottom line. People avoid low-paying jobs because inflated costs of housing and health care leave them bankrupt otherwise. Commuting distances stretch so much, cars fill entire streets because car sales are more profitable than bus tickets, train fares, and budgeted government spending. Work and driving take entire days because companies avoid paying additional full salaries. And politicians worsen or barely reduce these problems because the rich people behind all this fund their election campaigns. There is only one way to end this global cancer, and that is for everyone to stop the proceeds, relieve debt, and go moneyless for good.
We contributors of Moneyless Society have written other essays decrying the different kinds of pain debt dumps on us. Matthew Holten has also written a book explaining the systems theory behind the failures of moneyed society and structures that can replace it after it is repealed by a critical mass of people. Amanda Smith organizes volunteers, Zachary Marlow produces a documentary in progress as of Winter 2023, and these 3 leading members engage innovative people in a MoSo podcast. I recommend you tap into these resources and more. Visit Linktr.ee/moneyless for a full list of resources.
If you’d like to get involved in helping to make a “moneyless society” a reality in your local community, you can sign up to be a volunteer here, join our discord, and/or connect with us on social media by following @MoneylessSociety.
Works Cited:
[1] Fact sheets — Malnutrition (who.int)
[2] 6 Ways to Feed 11 Billion People (nbcnews.com)
[3] Homeless people in the U.S. 2007–2022 | Statista
[4] How Many Vacant Homes Are in America? (2022 Data) (anytimeestimate.com)
[5] World is ‘on notice’ as major UN report shows one million species face extinction | UN News
