This is a reponse to the workshop: A history of money. It has been crossposted from Topsoil.
The story of money is long, so I hear. credit, debt and even blood debt have existed as a way of long-distance trade, but its influence has always been in a way that has culminated in its collapse.
Put it this way: standardised capital is usually a method of control. Money represents that capital control, symbolising not only the value of exchange but the value of political structure that ensures that exchange. Thus, when the value of that money denigrates, the power of that authority is weak and open to fall apart.
Which only makes you question – when the gold standard was removed from monetary policy, were we glimpsing the beginning of the fall? Certainly Samir
Amin would say so.
So it’s no surprise that the Euro weakness is sending spasms through the banks and our governments. Perhaps that’s what is driving our ardent austerity measures. A need to retain power without capital in a globalised world. I wonder also if this is now the opportunity - the opportunity to create change on a global level.
The collapse of currency is a collapse of power, and our states are more willing to put us at risk so that they can remain in power. Which only reiterates the role of monetary policy – to keep the rich powerful at the dispossession of the poor.
