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Review of Eisenstein's Short Film
(Sacred Economics)
By Marc Gauvin
Copyright (c) 07102013
Reproduction in full expressly granted provide attribution and original link is provided.
1. First I will say what I agree with:
- The current definition of money is at the heart of most if not all our social problems.
- The current system makes us behave irrationally and alienates us from ourselves.
- The current definition of money is about control. I would say it gives the illusion of control.
2. Where I believe Eisenstein is confused.
- Money is an agreement.
- Negative interest (demurrage) is required, reverses usury and makes money circulate.
- Money circulates.
My disagreements are with Eisenstein's confused notion of the objective nature of money regarding its use as a standard measure of value. From "The Money PSYOP" ("Putting it All Together" page 26):
"...account balances are generated by transactions of real wealth, because otherwise the notes that must be “withdrawn” from accounts would be meaningless. Therefore, it is clear that the value attributed to the bank notes is derived from the account records. That in turn, can only have legitimacy by virtue of real wealth having been transacted as a backing (collateral) for the balances in the system. The opposite is impossible, simply because money is incapable of giving value to real wealth. That is precisely why it is the accounts that are independent of the notes while the opposite can never be the case."
Thus the idea that money is a circulating object is an illusion arising from confusing the abstract logical entity of a record of a measure of value with the physical nature of some (mobile) supports upon which such records are annotated. Coins and notes only become active after money is subtracted from an account and become inactive upon being summed to an account. Thus coins and notes are temporary supports for annotations of the abstract entity that is money. Now, accounts can only arise meaningfully as a measure of the value goods and services in transaction and are dependent on the creation and circulation of goods and services not on the creation and circulation of coins and notes. Hence ledgers are independent of each other but simultaneously dependent on the circulation of goods and services, coins and notes in turn and as shown above, are nothing more than extensions of accounts.
Given that money does not circulate and money depends on wealth and not the other way round, it becomes absurd to devise means to force its "circulation", even more absurd is to manipulate balances with the intent to coerce the measurer to some sort of precipitous action i.e. better spend this stuff because otherwise the demurrage (negative interest) will make it worthless. Therefore and assuming that money's function as a measure is THE sine-qua-non requirement, it makes no sense to apply either positive or negative interest to balances.
Finally, the notion that money "is an agreement" cannot hold, money cannot be both the agreement and the object of the agreement, if money is a measure it can only be referenced by agreements but it cannot in and of itself constitute an agreement. In this regard, this article may prove helpful.