The People Vs. Money

A 7-year-old Bangladeshi boy is mutilated after he refuses to beg.

This was the top bullet-point to a headline story on CNN the morning of December 4th, 2012.  Several men dragged the boy into an alley, held him down, and took a switchblade to his throat.  They sliced his chest and belly in an upside down cross.  And in a final brutal act, they hacked him sideways, chopping off his penis and his right testicle.  Why?  Because the boy refused to make money for them by begging in the streets.  Often, these abandoned street children will be horrifically maimed as it inspires a higher level of charity in others.

I refuse to accept this as the best that we—collectively as human beings—can do for each other.  The violence inflicted on that child in Bangladesh is a violence born in our own living rooms, across the smallest communities and largest epicenters; it is a psychological violence that has permeated every aspect of our lives.  The monetary-based economic system which dominates most of the world has become the seed for every needless horror our species currently faces.  

In order for any problem to be resolved, regardless of its complexity, the absolute source of the problem must be discovered and addressed.  Resolving only the side effects of the core problem is a temporary and unsustainable solution.  If the core cause of the problem persists, the side effects will resurface indefinitely and with greater force over time until a tipping point is reached, rendering further repair impossible. 

There are a growing list of negative side effects impacting our species and planet as a whole.  A great deal of time, money, and energy are being consumed combating these side effects (climate change, the war against terror, poverty, human trafficking, torture, etc.), but next to zero resources are being committed to discovering and addressing the true source of the problem.  Human beings have become so entrenched in our own invented systems that we have lost the ability to think, see, or even imagine a reality beyond them.  At the very heart of these many layers of systems (politics, law, education, etc.) is the monetary system.  Money exists at the heart of all other systems because human beings have allowed money to become the prime motivator for achievement.  Because of this, all systems serve the primary function of generating and hording wealth.

Money as a motivator and system of human survival has long-since become counterproductive.  The basic concept of money, or, to be more specific, fractional-reserve banking, can be dated back many centuries.  This gives us the advantage of leveraging most of recorded history as a measuring tool for money’s success as a system of human progress.  The critical mistake humanity has made is viewing money as an absolute, as a foundational pillar of human existence.  Money is an invention of human creativity.  Money solved a problem shaped by a growing need and/or desire for people to trade and acquire unique goods.  Our world has changed.  Technology has opened gateways to entirely new methods of automated production and resource management.  Money is no longer a necessary component for human survival.  Human beings are capable and ready to move beyond current economic structures toward a world truly interconnected, prosperous, and peaceful.  So long as we allow money to rule our governing systems, there will be endless conflict and needless human suffering.