Why Money Sucks

The modern economy revolves around the pursuit and accumulation of money. Why that hurts individuals and their communities, and one way to fix it.

In Life Inc., Douglas Rushkoff examines our collective history and identifies how the modern economy was built at the expense of the individual laborer and tradesperson.

In the pre-enlightenment, life was much more equitable because individual tradespeople and small family businesses were free to exchange services without interference from more powerful organizations or the government. Of course, those vested interests sensed the growing economic power occurring without their participation, and quickly inserted themselves into the process, making laws that took power away from the individuals and bequeathed them to corporations. Over time, this has led to multigenerational accrued wealth by the select few and corporations having as much or more power as nation-states. Each step of the way, more centralized and powerful interests stacked the deck to squeeze out smaller parties and concentrate their money.

Since society revolves around money-backed commerce, it has always been almost impossible to opt-out completely. But, throughout history, communities have identified opportunities to create ways to exchange services without money.

And money often creates a zero-sum arrangement where each side of a transaction is incentivized to “win,” i.e., get more money for their services or more services for their money. Many who have felt an overwhelming realization that money sucks have turned to time banking to create a values-system divorced from the unjust economy of generational wealth and power structures.

In a time-based currency system, everyone has an equal amount of time per day (24 hours). While some of those with multigenerational wealth obviously still have a leg up (in that they can live on their savings), they cannot manufacture more hours in a day. And their time is not worth any more than anyone else’s time.

What if, instead of haggling down the dollar price for a dog walker, you got to know them and realized they could not afford the guitar lessons you could provide as an exchange.

When you begin exchanging time with people, you may find yourself working together to help your local community or a group of people with shared interests instead of maximizing value extraction from each other.

As Rushkoff rightfully points out that, we can’t just opt out of the modern economy. But we can start thinking more about our time and how we spend it. It’s what led us to create TimeRepublik, a way to make it easier for you to use your time to help others.