Money Wisdom #17

The king once summoned Nasruddin to court.

"Tell me," said the king, "you are a mystic, a philosopher, a man of unconventional understandings. I have become interested in the issue of value. It's an interesting philosophical question. How does one establish the true worth of a person or an object. If I were to ask you to estimate my value, what would you say?"

"Oh, " Nasruddin said, "I'd say about two hundred dinars."

The emperor was flabbergasted. "What?! But this belt I'm wearing is worth two hundred dinars!"

"I know," said Nasruddin. "Actually I was taking the value of the belt into consideration."

A Medieval Turkish Story quoted in

David Graeber  Debt  The First 5000 Years (2011) p273

Money Wisdom #16

Just as lawyers have spent a thousand years trying to make sense of Roman property concepts, so have philosophers spent centuries trying to understand how it could be possible for us to have a relation of domination over ourselves. The most popular solution - to say that each of us has something called a "mind" and that this is completely separate from something else, which we can call "the body," and that the first thing holds natural domination over the second - flies in the face of just about everything we know about cognitive science. It's obviously untrue, but we continue to hold on to it anyway, for the simple reason that none of our everyday assumptions about property, law, and freedom would make any sense without it.

David Graeber  Debt  The First 5000 Years (2011) p207 

Money Wisdom #15

"Up in our country we are human !" said the hunter. "And since we are human we help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today you may get tomorrow. Up here we say that by gifts one makes slaves and by whips one makes dogs."

Freuchen  (1961) p154 quoted in

David Graeber  Debt  The First 5000 Years (2011) p79

Money Wisdom #14

SATAN, turning to the right (towards the males)
You worship two things,
You know nothing finer:
The glitter of gold,
And a woman's vagina.
The one it devours,
The other procures;
How happy you'd be then,
If both could be yours!

.....

SATAN, turning to the left (towards the females)
Two things are delightful
For you to behold:
A glorious phallus
And glittering gold.
Now listen, you women,
For you must be told
To treasure the phallus
Far more than the gold!

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Faust - The Unpublished Scenarios from the Walpurgis night (@1832)

Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by John R. Williams (1999) p.376

Proto-Economic Flo

Florence the Jack Russell recently celebrated her 2nd birthday. There's a picture of her below taken when she was bit younger with her first ever proper bone. She didn't quite know what to make of it.

Bones are important to Florence. Every dog I've had loves to chew a bone. But I've noticed that Florence's relationship with her bones isn't simply that she loves them as food. Its more complicated than that.

She does eat some of them, that's for sure. Some lamb bones are relatively easy for her to digest. We don't feed her raw chicken (with bones), although I think she'd like that. Bones are more rare treat than a staple of her diet. She enjoys licking the marrow from a beef bone. And she keeps the licked-clean bone. I would guess that the bone in the picture is hidden somewhere in the house. Her collection of real bones, along with toy bones - a brown plastic bone and a large raw hide bone - have special meaning.

She does have other things that she seems to value, other possessions; some soft toys, her bed and her Frisbee. Its easy to accept the idea that a dog has possessions once you get to know Florence. Our other dogs have been similar but Florence is more expressive in her definition of property rights. She's our first terrier.

That's not that she won't let you touch her stuff. In fact with her soft toys she'll bring them to you so play with her. She'll follow you around banging into the backs of your legs until you pay her attention. Infuriatingly she'll also pretend she's going to give you her toy and then run away at the last second in an effort to get you to chase her. However, I don't think its just about play. There's also been a few occasions when one of her bones has been offered as a gift. Not to play with, but for you to enjoy as a bone (it's return is expected). The gift bone has always been given as a result of some very bad behaviour for which she's had a major telling-off. Although its only ever the plastic bones. I guess the real bones are just too valuable.

Indeed bones generally seem to be different in her mind from her other possessions. Whereas her toys are randomly spread about the living room and sun room, in constant need of tidying up, her bones are neatly secreted away. We sometimes discover them under a piece of furniture, or stuffed down the side of the sofa. She seems to put the most treasured ones under the marital bed. She also does a scraping-I'm going to make a nest here-thing, under the bed. I think its her safe place; a bank vault and maternity ward rolled into one.

She hasn't had a litter of pubs yet. She's come into season twice. Both times she's become a turbo terrier; her possessions even more aggressively defended, and her temper shorter. Winding her up is a fun but dangerous sport. If you equate the idea of possession with the basic notion of money and economic relations, as I do, its unsurprising that a rise in her sexual energies is accompanied by a boost in her possessiveness. Money and sex seem intimately related in human culture, so perhaps its true for the world of dogs too.

We tend to think of money as a purely human thing. But when you think about some of the aspects of our relations to which money seems related - the notions of trust, indebtedness, reward - it seems a little arrogant to presume that these are only human qualities. In the Klingon-esque world of the terrier there are moral imperatives. And there is deep ambivalence - there is fear as well as fight.

It doesn't take too much of a leap of our imagination to believe that a dog's bones, are man's gold. Does it?

If you've read any of my writing before you'll know I have an unconventional view about Money. I imagine it to be something like a force or an aspect of our reality. Certainly something different to any explanation offered by current thinking. I'm not completely on my own. The idea that Money has a deeper relationship with the development of the cognitive process has been around a long while. More recently there's been a study at Yale to suggest that Capuchin monkeys have an understanding of price, wealth and even display the same loss-aversion bias as we do. Personally I wouldn't put a monkey in a cage to find this out. Florence and her bones is enough evidence for me.

My first 'tweet quote' for you this time.

I have a dog shaped hole in my life.

@nightingalefred 15th July 2011

Freddie is a singer songwriter with whom I had the pleasure of working a few years back. He has a way with words. I'd urge you to check out Heart Shaped Stone and St Catherine's Day (you have to sit thru a short ad to listen, but Freddie gets paid if you do).

Money Wisdom #13

LORD CHANCELLOR, entering slowly
That I should live to see this happy day !
See this momentous paper in my hand
That has turned ill to good throughout the land.
[he reads]
'Let it be known to all who would be told:
This note is worth a thousand crowns in gold,
Secured by the buried treasure to be found
In the Imperial lands beneath the ground.
Those riches, once recovered, shall be deemed
As full equivalent to be redeemed.'

EMPEROR
But this is folly, criminal deceit!
Who wrote my signature in counterfeit?
Was no one punished for this forgery?

TREASURER
Remember, Sire! You signed the note for me
Last night, when you appeared as the mighty Pan.
The Chancellor and I explained the plan:
'To crown the pleasure of this celebration,
A few strokes of the pen will save the nation.'
You signed your name and by mysterious skills
It was reprinted on a thousand bills.
We issued the whole series right away,
So all could share this benefit today;
Tens, thirties, fifties, hundreds are to hand,
And happiness has spread through all the land.
Your city once so ravaged with decay -
It teems with joy and life again today.
Although your name has long inspired devotion,
I never heard it praised with such emotion.
We need no further alphabet than this -
That sign alone fills every heart with bliss.

EMPEROR
And they accept these notes, as gold, you say?
The court, the army take them as full pay?
So be it, then - but it still puzzles me.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe Faust - The Second Part of the Tragedy (1832)

Translated, with an Introduction and Notes, by John R. Williams (1999) p.193-194

Money Wisdom #012

"In the twentieth century, we saw money turn rapidly from paper into plastic and then into mere electronic blips generated in computers, transferred over telephone lines and through computer terminals, and without any corporal existence outside of the electronic domain. Throughout its history, money has become steadily more abstract. By moving at the speed of light, electronic money has become the most powerful financial, political and social force in the world. Money has become even more like God: totally abstract and without corporeal body."

Jack Weatherford The History of Money (1997) p.249

Money Wisdom #011

"With today's computer technology, there is no limit to the number of decimals of π that can be obtained except that set by time and money."

Jan Gullberg Mathematics: from the birth of numbers (1997) p.94

The New Money Movement & Moral Currencies

In my post about Bitcoin, I told you how excited I was about it. The new Money movement seems to be gathering such pace with Bitcoin's digital currency at the forefront. But there is another important strand which centres around 'moral currencies'. It provides a major impetus to the movement.

The idea of creating a moral currency is something I got really excited about in the 1990's with the Ecolabel movement. Its an appealingly simple philosophy. Spend your money with the good guys and the world will be a better place.

And although things have changed since the 1990's, its not yet all farmer's markets, line caught fish and fairtrade coffee. In fact the bad guys quickly took advantage of our desire for green and ethical goods and exploited it. So things got confusing. Should I buy imported certified organic carrots from a supermarket, or local non certified organic carrots from a farmer's market? Who knows?

But the idea of changing the world by spending ethically and creating sustainably is still with us. Perhaps because at some level, we all believe in it. But also because the idea has developed. Today the internet helps us to get and give much more data about the stuff we trade and with whom we are trading. And from this data, future-minded digital adventurers hope to create currencies by measuring trust, respect, reciprocity and every other aspect of our productive relationships.

I'm not sure how you get from measuring these qualities to creating a currency, but I'm glad some brave souls are trying to do it. My worry is that this part of the new Money movement conflates currency with Money. Currencies connect us to Money, by representing our claim on Money's power. But if the dollar, the euro and the renimbi (the Chinese currency) failed tomorrow, Money would still exist. The wealth and assets that back up our belief in the existence of Money - the underlying economy as we like to refer to it in times of crisis -wouldn't just turn to dust.

Money is more than measurement. Just like gravity is more than weight.

One idea about Money is that its a basis for abstract thought, playing a role in our cognitive development as human beings. Most people would accept this about maths or language but not Money. I think there's something to the idea, which is why I get so very excited about changes to our 'monetary conciousness'.

Another idea about Money is that it subverts moral polarities, blurring the lines between good and bad, right and wrong. Most people would accept this because it tallies with their everyday experience of Money. And it also serves to make the idea of a moral currency very appealing.

However, Money's nature is one of pure amorality. It is an immaculate conception. There really is no such thing as 'dirty money', just good and bad ways of using it. So I don't think that morality can ever be thrust upon it directly. And I think its amorality is fundamental to whatever part Money plays in the development of our minds and indeed, our reality. This is why I'm dubious about morality 'sticking' to the currencies of the new money movement. Money has always resisted our attempts to shackle it with an ideology of any kind and will shrug off those currencies that try to do so.

Perhaps the stongest argument against the success of moral currencies is that we already have information about the stuff on which we spend our money and we often ignore it when the stuff is cheap. I know its something I do on a daily basis. A moral currency will become a way of contracting out the moral choices that we should be making. A bit like having a religion.

Understanding Money - knowing what it is - seems to me to be one of our greatest challenges, more so than going to Mars. So I'm excited about all aspects of the new Money movement. For me Bitcoin, or rather the multiplicity of digital currencies to which I hope it gives rise, have the greatest chance of pulling us into a new monetary conciousness; where Money more effectively mediates a supply for our demands and a demand for our supplies. And in so doing creates a reality in which we can fulfil our potential.

Then I might get paid for writing this, rather than driving a van.

No quote this time, but here's a few links for you to check out on The New Money Movement
http://www.moneyandlifemovie.com/
http://www.openmoney.org/
http://newcurrencyfrontiers.com/
http://collaborativeconsumption.com/
http://transformingmoney.blogspot.com/
http://www.ingenesist.com/
http://www.webisteme.com/blog/
http://www.dyndy.net/
http://www.metacurrency.org/
http://www.artbrock.com/
http://www.emergence.cc/futureofmoney/

Money, Currency and Bitcoin

There's a lot of excitement on the internet about something called Bitcoin - a new digital currency. I'm very excited about it. But then I get excited by money generally.

Bitcoin is digital. Its made up of 0's & 1's rather than yellow metal or paper promises. And its very quickly become a new currency. There have been quite a few attempts to launch digital currencies but none have captured the imagination quite like Bitcoin.

A currency is anything that can used to faciliate exchange. So dollars work as currency, so do Sterling & the Euro. Bonds & shares work too. But so do camels, cows, drugs and just about anything else. Obviously its much easier to buy a newspaper with a dollar than a camel. But then again who knows what the future holds? In the long term camels, cows and drugs may be a more secure currency than the dollar.

The point is that currency is a manifestation of money. And Money is magic. I mean this literally. It has a transformational power which we know but cannot understand. This makes me sound pretty flakey doesn't it? But tell me, how would you define magic? For me the phenomenon of money fits the bill pretty well.

Plus I like calling money magic. It serves to remind me of the true state of our understanding of money. In fact, its arrogant - and completely in denial of the evidence before us - to assume that science has a grip on money at all. When it comes to money we're medieval.

So if you find yourself asking if Bitcoin is really money, you might as well ask if the notes and coins in your wallet are really money too. The simple but amazing truth is - that we don't know. We don't know what money is. But if Bitcoin works as well as any other currency, then its fair to assume that it's at least as real as anything else we call money.

That gives you some idea why I get so excited about money. Now let me tell you why I'm very excited about Bitcoin.

To me the idea of a one world currency is really scary. Imagine what would be done in the name of its defence. I'm in love with the utopian notion we should all create our own currencies. I'd issue a thousand Jonny Units and via the market a price is established - we'd all know the value of 1 Jon so I could go shopping. If I ran out and needed more, I'd issue more and the value of 1 Jon would rise or fall accordingly. This utopian economic world would consist of billions of competing currencies. To my mind this, not charity, would make poverty history.

Of course, that's not what Bitcoin does now.

But it at least points towards that possibility. Its easy to imagine there could be more digital currencies competing 10 years from now than there are politico-state currencies competing today. The benefit is that Digital currencies work according to the rules laid down in their code. Code - that with Bitcoin - is available for anyone to read. Politico-state currencies work differently to that.

It may be a big leap from multiple digital currencies to individual currencies, but Bitcoin, and the exchanges and intermediary functions that it has spawned show the technological barriers are being broken. A deeper broader freedom is possible when we can create our own money rather than leave it to the men in suits. That's a tantilising prospect for the future inhabitants of planet Earth.


Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Peter Sinfield (an extract from) Epitaph ~ In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)