[MD] Intellectual activity

[Gene M]

ayar wrote:
>
> Gene,
>
>   The money is on fire.



I think I understand what you're saying, and I agree with it.Even a static
pattern of value is in flux, degrading, shifting, altering.
It's true, as society marches on, the role of money continues to change, and
it seems to grow. I'm very good at compartmentalizing things, so money seems
pretty distinctly social to me. I'm also aware that this is an artificial
split, and probably not fully accurate by any length of the vast concept
money has been made into. Let's look back on the progression of money a bit
shall we? Maybe it'll help.

I suggest we begin with barter. Goods for Goods, equivalent trade. Then
comes tokens, replacing the goods. These had their own value, being rare
metals (Gold, Silver), and difficult to come by. They still had an intrinsic
worth, but were also linked to What you could get with them. Then came
tokens to replace the actual metals themselves! Bills and coins made of less
precious materials, that simply represented the Gold and Silver once used.
This is where things get very abstract, because the tokens no longer have
any intrinsic worth.

Through this whole process I see money as a social institution, one which
aided in the social interactions between people. Gave them a means to
co-exist with each others goods without killing and taking them, for the
most part. It seems interesting that in the beginning there must have been a
large intellectual component in figuring out how items matched up in barter.
How many chickens is a goat worth? I'm sure there was a lot of room for
smart people to bargain. But once Money of a sort came about, it dropped
much further into the social level. You could bargain when trading money for
goods, but money for money? That was set now. However new intellectual areas
to do with money opened up. The more socially standardises money becomes,
the less room there seems to be for barter. However look nowadays. Sure
getting and spending money is a simple social pattern, but Stocks? Mutual
Funds, RRSPs, Taxes? This is the bartering now. The Intellectual patterns of
money just seem to have gotten much more complicated as money became simpler
to use, but much more abstract as a good. It's not even based on how much
Gold a country has anymore!

No, Money is certainly more than just a Social Pattern it seems. It really
is quite the house of patterns, if you will. Certainly built up by Society,
and used by it, but so much more. Maybe it really can't be pigeonholed. Hmm,
have to think about this further.

-Gene