Medium of exchange
Medium of exchange People use money as a medium of exchange to buy everything they need to live on. They use it to pay for food, clothing, an apartment, train ;ckets or gasoline for their car, and much more. To be able to do this, they must have money in the respec;ve na;onal currency. Exchanging goods, exchanging ;me or giving things without having to pay anything for them are excep;ons - not the rule. Money is thus the sole, universal means of payment established by law.
Value
Value Buying something means: We pay the price demanded for a good in money and get the specific good in return. At this moment the good is equated to the amount of money paid for it. This works by adding this amount of money (the value) to the good. This happens automaBcally and usually unconsciously. Thus we see the things of this world by the money eyeglasses. If we try to take off these glasses, then the baGery hen becomes a sensiBve animal or workers become personaliBes with their special characterisBcs. One crucial difference must be noted: While money is value, goods only carry the value and are also the goods they are.
Coins
Coins For a long )me, un)l the European Middle Ages, buying was exchange in kind. Even the standardized coins remained things with certain proper)es that could be used elsewhere. They could be melted down, made into a tool or piece of jewelry, or put aside in a treasure chest. For the handling of coins, the material used, their weight and their countability (standardiza)on) played an essen)al role. For in an exchange, it was necessary to weigh the appropriate amount of one good against the appropriate amount of the other good. This being appropriate could only be es)mated: It is too liGle, it is too much, it is enough? The abstract idea of value did not yet exist. The weighing was done directly on the things themselves. Coins were not the only means of exchange; many other things were in use - from vessels to furniture to animals.
Value
Value
Value as pure quantum It was not un1l the emergence of an area-wide money economy, in which money became the universal means of payment, that the concept of value came into being. The exchange func1on had detached itself from the material of the coins. Thus, the medium of exchange le@ the sphere of goods and services and transformed itself into a medium of exchange that is itself insubstan1al. In exchange, suddenly no more things (i.e. standardized pieces of metal) are counted, but pure quanta. This pure quantum, which can be subdivided at will, is the value which came into the world with money. Money value is an empty frame of reference against which goods are measured as against a yards1ck. Thus we humans depend on something that does not exist as a thing. By requiring people to use money to access the things they need to live, money takes effect. If the chains of purchase ac1ons were suddenly suspended, numbers on the account would simply become numbers and banknotes would be useless paper.
Na#on States
Na#on states For money to func-on as a pure reference system, people must use it con-nuously and reliably. This is ensured by the na-on states, which establish their respec-ve na-onal currencies as the legal and sole means of payment; they enforce compliance with the monetary monopoly by means of laws, courts, police and, if necessary, with the help of the military. This is because na-onstates are just as dependent on money for their existence as their inhabitants are.
Property
Property Money is always paid for something that is someone's property. For people to be able to exchange goods for money, they must first have exclusive possession of them - both the goods and the money. All the things that exist are available only where the money for them exists. Without money they are not available, although they exist. Conversely, only those goods find use that find a buyer. Goods that do not find a buyer are useless when viewed through the lens of money and are oCen destroyed. From it results: For those who have money, money creates abundance. For those who don't have money, money creates scarcity. Think, for example, of the overflowing shelves in supermarkets or the waste of food in general - while in the global South people starve because food prices are too high in relaIon to their income.
Power of disposi,on
Power of disposi,on In order to get money, people usually sell what they produce or what they accomplish. In doing so, they accept that other people dispose of them and their life8me. Conversely, when they go shopping in the supermarket, for example, the same people dispose of the people who produced the goods, transported them and made them available for selec8on. They do not have to know these people, and they usually do not know the condi8ons under which they worked. Moreover, in a money-based system, people have to do things they would not otherwise do. Who would come up with the idea of doing the same monotonous job for eight hours a day, five days a week? Who would, against all knowledge of the climate problem, con8nue to turn fer8le farmland and forests into industrial wastelands?
Compe&&on
Compe&&on Those who need money need the same as everyone else. Money puts people in compe77on with each other: for the money of others, against others, for themselves. At the latest, they are confronted with this compe77on when looking for a job or obtaining an opera7ng loan for their start-up company. The compe77on is further driven by the necessarily opposing interests of buyer and seller. The buyer tries to get goods for as liAle money as possible, the seller tries to get as much money as possible for his goods. Compe77on for money takes place between individuals who must compete in the marketplace. The same happens between professions, companies, between communi7es, ci7es, regions, states and state blocs.
Growth
Growth Ever since people in Western Central Europe became dependent on money as a universal means of payment in the transi8on from the Middle Ages to modern 8mes, they have had to make sure that they take in more money than they have spent on obtaining it. For example, if a baker buys flour from the miller and uses it to bake his breads, he must charge more for it than he spent on the flour and all other expenses. Otherwise, he would come out with zero and would be leE with nothing to buy vegetables at the market, for example. People who earn their money through wage labor depend on the successful business performance, i.e. the profits, of their employers. If they go bankrupt, they lose their jobs and thus their income. Even the states depend for their existence on the successful business of the companies located in their territory and therefore provide the appropriate framework condi8ons so that the economy can grow.
Credit
Credit The value of modern money lies not in the money itself, but in its access to the things that ma8er to people. It is like the gold s=ll in the ground that Mephisto refers to in Goethe's Faust when he suggests "sign money" to the king. The sign money represents a claim to future values. In this sense, money is created as a credit to be redeemed. As a consequence, the chains of purchase ac=ons must not break as long as the money is to exist as such. Once set in mo=on, this dynamic demands that repaid credits be immediately replaced by new ones, so that access to needed things remains guaranteed.
Finance
Finance Credit-based money and its systemic growth dynamics require an exponen8ally increasing demand for surplus value (profits). The resources available in a finite world can never meet this demand. Therefore, expansion into the financial economy occurs. This is because monetary profit from goods, which is expected to come later, can be an8cipated in the form of securi8es. The value of these securi8es rises or falls with the level of the expected profit. Every value that a security represents in this way can become the subject of a profit expecta8on again - in a further, deriva8ve financial security (La8n derivare = to derive). In this way, the originally expected monetary gain is mul8plied further and further. Ul8mately, however, all these securi8es remain 8ed to the redemp8on of the original profit expecta8on. If this expecta8on is not fulfilled, all the securi8zed "values" based on it vanish into thin air.
Thinkform
Thinkform With the emergence of money as the one universal means of payment, people are required to perform a historically condi9oned mental performance. That is to say, this mental capacity is not innate to people. They have acquired it in the everyday handling of money. When buying and selling, money as a pure quan9ty (without any content of its own) is related to very different goods. Money and goods are at the same 9me strictly kept apart: Pure quan9ty cannot be content-determined goods content-determined goods cannot be pure quan9ty. If we try to imagine such an abstract exclusive rela9on, we may get dizzy. Nevertheless, we rou9nely perform this step of abstrac9on without no9cing it. We even apply it where it is not about the handling of money. For example, in modern natural sciences. With this form of thinking, unique things are seen as pure (contentless) data, in order to draw conclusions about nature by means of these data. Only by this, natural phenomena become decomposable, analyzable and controllable. When decisions are made, it is usually this data-based percep9on that is decisive and not what else we think and feel in the process.
Commoning in the countryside: the fox mill
Commoning in the countryside: the fox mill The Fuchsmühle is one of several houses which is community enlivened in the German village of Waldkappel. It wants to counteract the vacancy rate and demographic change in the countryside by forming self-organized collecAve structures (commoning). The togetherness of the Fuchsmühle is based on voluntary contribuAons - for example, I can take over the cooking of lunch or work in the garden shiF. This creates a decentralized needs-oriented network that shares resources and knowledge. The goal is for this network to fit into the region, not being separate from it. Within the Fuchsmühle there is also a shared economy, which means that the income of the residents flows into an account and can be used by anyone as needed. www.fuchsmühle.org
Movement: Responsibility EARTH Villach
Movement: Responsibility EARTH Villach Responsibility EARTH is a decentralized movement in Villach, Austria, which takes the exis?ng crises as an opportunity to shape their own living space and living condi?ons. By establishing money logic-free cycles, a supply context based on giving and contribu?ng is created locally. The prevailing logic of money is thus broken in favor of other forms of togetherness. This way of dealing emerged from prac?ce and enables all interested par?es to par?cipate in their own way - with and without money. www.verantwortung-erde.org
Own experience
Own experience