Money and Time Money as we know it is a late historical phenomenon. Where it takes hold, a society’s total life processes depend on it and time as a whole is devoted to serving one blank purpose: money must continue to function like money, and it must always increase.
The genesis of modern money
For centuries, the early forms of money remained secondary as the provisioning of life’s necessities was based on self-sufficiency, or by the distribution of goods by the powerful. That changed in the course of the 16th century with the emergence of the capitalist economy. In this system, the entire provisioning of society depends on money.
Growth
In a society where people depend primarily on money for their livelihoods, they have to get more money
for what they do than they expend on doing it. This necessity alone drives the inexorable compulsion of money to become more money.
Rich and Poor
More money, more prosperity for all: This promise, seemingly inherent in money, is not being fulfilled. Even if an occasional pauper strikes it rich, overall, as time goes by, the poor grow poorer and the rich richer. Money’s continuing usage is based on its function as capital: the more money that’s invested, the more it can yield.
17
