Post
Topic
Board Economics
Re: Money is an imaginary concept, but humanity is enslaved by it
by
freeyourmind
on 31/03/2015, 17:08:19 UTC
That is more a problem with this particular monetary system, rather than money in general.

Indeed, today's monetary system greatly benefit money creator and those who are close to money creator. Money creation has become a stronger power than presidents, but this power is purely built on people's imaginary concept of money, if they don't have this concept, then the power will disappear (An example is that you take some Chinese Yuan to England and try to spend it, it will not be accepted except for Chinese people, since in English people's mind this is not money)

However, it is almost impossible for people to get rid of the concept of money, I think it is a very old, government dependent concept

Also, it is very difficult to imagine what is an ideal form of money: You can even use some scientifically accurate unit to measure value, like 1kwh electricity. However since the supply and demand will change based on market condition, 1kwh electricity would worth more during winter and less during summer, thus make it not suitable to work as unit of value

Ideally, an unit of value should keep its value constant regardless of supply and demand change, so it is best it is just an imaginary concept, does not have any demand. But as soon as it has value, it will have demand, and demand can not be a constant, so it is just impossible. That's the reason central banks trying to manipulate the supply to keep up with the demand change, but that is a best effort thing, since the demand usually changed long ago before they react. The reason fiat money have stable value is just because people's consensus that it SHOULD have a stable value, and banks keep majority of people from getting more fiat money, to make sure the demand is close to infinite

So the interest rate, which inversely affects the demand of money, is also set by the central bank.  Artificially low interest rates, cause artificially high demand for money, followed by monetary expansion.  I think that this Keynesian model of central decision making only works when the government makes decisions in the best interest of society as a whole rather than being in the best interest of a select few.  Seeing that the government is not currently capable of making decisions for the greater good, that power to control and manipulate the monetary system should be decreased, and likely with a decrease in the control of money, the corruption will decrease as well.