Money! It's a Crime...

There is no alternative to this disease of greed we call currency.

Your first reaction was, "Yeah! That's great! Money is evil!" Perhaps giving it a second thought you might have said, "Realistically, money is necessary because it is the tool of commerce and trade. Of course we need money, you twit."

Which is where I have been for quite sometime. Discussing the topic of money at work with a reasonable colleague, he had me convinced that money was indeed necessary. Going further, he had convinced me that capitalism was the new environment in which evolution was taking place. That was the bit that had me convinced.

What he actually did was make me okay with the fact that money was evil. I say pollution is a necessary evil of technological production, but when we have the technology to do so, we should clean it up. This way, currency is the necessary evil for trade and commerce.

Money is evil because it has "mass" if you will. Money attracts money, hence the expression "the rich get rich...". This makes it clear that there is something unfair about money. Money is evil because it controls every aspect of our lives. You can only follow through with an idea if you can get enough money to do it. The ones with the money, eg investors, decide if your ideas are good enough to make more money for them and a little for you. The ones with money decide if your ideas live or die. That is not a world I want to live in.

So now we have taken control of our own evolution with the dollar. You are guaranteed to procreate if you have enough money.

Corporations are no longer driven by providing a quality product. They are driven by their bottom line and will sacrifice quality for money. People do that with their own lives, too; trading quality for quantity.

These people have sold their souls for currency.

The game we are playing is no longer about doing good things for ourselves and our customers. Our egos and pride drive us to spend more and more money to show how "fit for reproduction" we are. Status cars, expensive suits, office politics.

"But you said there's no alternative!"

You're right. There is no alternative to the money game.

I read a bumper sticker that said "STOP BITCHING. START A REVOLUTION."

Starting a revolution is as easy as not paying your bills. Fuck your mortage, your car payment, your tuition, your student loans, your taxes. Take your cash out of the bank.

Tell your creditors that you will no longer allow them to enslave you with their monthly bills.

The answer to the money game is simple: Stop playing it. But then what? Go about your day.

Go to work knowing you're doing it for free, to help your company provide a good product for its customers. Don't view your life as a collection of stuff you have spent money on.

How about you spend half of your time making the world a better place, and spending half of your time doing whatever you want?

On average, I work every other day at my job. My shifts are 12 hours each. This leaves little room for doing much besides sleeping on work days. But for half the week, I can do whatever I want. I think this adds great balance to my life.

I know not many can say this, but I would stay at my job if everything was free.

So what is our real currency? Our time and effort. That is what money is supposed to be measuring anyway, right? So if money is power, and money is a symbol for our own time and effort, let's use our time and effort to vote on how we want the world to be.

[This is a future-link-placeholder for a realistic way of doing this. I am formulating a plan.] <- Now a link to something!

02.18.2010. 17:23

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