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Figure f8-money. How we understand money: as its eventual contribution to Multi-aspectual Good
Summary: What would you rather spend money on? This Rethink gives a basis for reconceiving money so that it works for Good not Evil.
"Love of money is a root of all (kinds of) evil." I Timothy 6:10
# 12 December 2023. ze26, CM around [1.48.20] Money as lack of trust. ===== do: investigate this; who made that point. # 7 December 2023: Sacrosanct. Money as lack of trust » what about salary? » salary is not an exchange in real life; it is more debt # 7 December 2023: scrap 220117: "People should keep more of the money they earn" # 31 October 2023: Not "rethink money" but rather "provide grounds and motivation to treat money aright" incl to allow for barter, for unpaid, and to reduce greed.
# 31 October 2023: "Capital is the ability to control the employment of resources" "My hard-earned cash" - scrap 230818. Maybe a quotation.
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One RLDG participant:
"Assuming I have at least a tiny amount of disposable income, the main point is not the money I have. The main point is what I do that money enables.
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# 15 May 2023 *** Rw as not 'money is not owned commodity but flow' but "it gives basis and motivation to strengthen a healthy view of money" that can lessen evil operations.
# Money as owned commodity -> [added?] pressures on banks and currency and interest rates and exchange rates. scrap- # 27 January 2023, from ze22, NO: also use Rich man and Lazarus Luke 16:19-31 # 3 April 2023: see cm-220923 on graeber view that money is about lack of trust.
Summary: It is better to see money, not as owned commodity (as much capitalist and socialist economics do) but as tokens of exchange that enables proper functioning, which contributes to Multi-aspectual Good. Money's true value is that contribution.
We think of money in a different way, a way that might address some of the problems it causes. For millennia, Good has too often been sacrificed for money, and Harm has willingly served it (not only in the era of Bullionism but right through to today). Since people have been operating with money for so long, it is fruitless to say "Stop using money"; according to the above, it might not be money itself, but love of money, which is is a root of all kinds of evil.
As Figure f8-money illustrates, we do not consider money on its own, nor just how money enables us to obtain goods and services, but what those good and services enable us to do - and not even just that, but we take into account how what we do contributes to Multi-aspectual Good. Money should be the servant of Good, not Good the servant of money. Notice the slanting arrows, which indicate that goods and services can be obtained without money (e.g. voluntary activity), human functioning can occur without explicit goods and services, and Multi-aspectual Good can comes from other than human functioning (e.g. natural of, for religious people, even Divine action).
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Figure f8-money. How we understand money: as its eventual contribution to Multi-aspectual Good
In exploring the nature, activity and validity of money, we dig down to the root of the problems arising from it and seeing its real validity and nature. And we find it might not be that difficult to redirect money as servant of Good, if we understand its nature with the help of Dooyeweerd's philosophy, with reference to meaningfulness and functioning, and in the light of its potential contribution to Multi-aspectual Good.
The problem is that most discussion of money presupposes it as a thing, as a commodity that is owned by individuals, households, companies, corporations or nations. This focus on money as owned commodity might have led economics astray in both theory and practice.
We will first question this presupposition, which pervades politics, business and the media, then look at aspects of money, then reconceive money in terms of its contribution to Multi-aspectual Good. Finally, we return to the modicum of validity there may be in treating money as an owned commodity.
Whether money may be treated as an owned commodity seems a rather esoteric, abstract point and, in many ways, it is. However, our presuppositions about its nature lead, in ways hidden, to many problems. Here are some of them - 'visible' 'real life' examples, though caused by deeper issues like selfishness, idolatry, etc.
All these are problems that are either caused or exacerbated by treating money as a commodity we own. Much of it arises from ethical dysfunction. Notice the role of our old friend, "attitude", which lies 'underneath' and invisibly impacts our functioning in all other aspects of what we do and are. The accumulation of money often amounts to idolatry, which then exacerbates harmful idolatry in other spheres of life.
According to a Dooyeweerdian view, such problems cause what might be called "ontological strain" in that we treat it in a way that is not true to money's nature and reality. So it does not work well when we treat it otherwise. What is money's true nature? How else may we understand it? We treat money an an enabler of functioning that might contribute to Multi-aspectual Good. (Of course, we must clearly differentiate between money that harms from money that does Good, and a way to do so is to focus on the quality and kinds of functioning that money enables, and whether that is Good or Evil.)
It was easy to see gold coins as owned commodities, but this is no longer the case since most money now is a mere number represented in databases. That fact tells us something about the nature of money, as money rather than as precious metal. Lawson [2022], with many others, argue it is a mistake to seek the nature of money in intrinsic properties of any "money thing" such as precious metals, commodities or debts. We seek its nature in meaning and functioning, which are foundational in Dooyeweerd.
(Note: According to Dooyeweerd, the very nature of being is meaning [NC, I, 4]. Money is not money, qua money, except by virtue of its functioning in exchange of value. Money is more like flow than commodity. Of course, most economists know this - for example, the genius of GDP was to calculate it on the basis of its dynamic flow rather than static capital - but those who use money often do not, and much economic theory does not properly express this. Even when deposited in a bank, as though an owned commodity, static, it is in fact dynamic as the bank uses deposits to invest or lend; but see later.)
Consider aspects involved in payment:
Various features of money are enabled by several aspects together. For example, the uniform measure of value that is currency, is enabled by the social aspect of agreement by not only the parties of the exchange but also the government and most citizens, and the ethical aspect of trust in that agreement. The lingual aspect enables communication of this uniform value. The juridical aspect enables the value of the currency to be reasonable.
In the pistic aspect lies much, for example, I might see money as a means of getting what I want, which may be a false justification of self-centredness and subsequent injustice to the other party, especially when haggling is involved, I might see the payment as generously helping the other person, I might also use money as a vote for one supplier over another (e.g. buy from small, local, known, ethical shop rather than large, faceless, global retailer of doubtful ethicality), even if the one I vote for charges more.
Usually they end up with the lingual and social aspects, as token of value, and as agreement about that value. These are the two main aspects that make money meaningful, and may be seen as the qualifying or leading aspects of the entity-type that is money. But all the other aspects play their part, the earlier aspects making the lingual and social functioning possible, making it work) and the later aspects shaping it. So, whereas most thinkers focus solely on these two aspects, we recognise all aspects, as above, and are thereby able to welcome almost all those ideas into a broader view, while prioritising none.
Notice, however, that in Lawson, and others, money is not value as such, but merely a token of value agreed, and potential value at that. As discussed in Chapter 5, real value is beyond money, and of many kinds. This is a philosophical reason why it is mistaken and problematic to treat it as value in itself.
Money, when in use for purchasing, acts not only as an aquirer of resource, but acts as a vote, in that we favour one supplier over others. As mentioned, the challenge is therefore not only which supplier gives us more resource for our money, but does our money support Good suppliers over Evil suppliers, suppliers that do more Good or more Harm? ("Evil" as understood in Chapter 7.) This is a direct implication of the mandate of economics being to contribute to Multi-aspectual Good, and is no mere optional extra but lies at the heart of economics. That is why movements for so-called ethical consumption have arisen and become strong; the insights they bring are not to be sidelined but welcomed into the very heart of economics.
Once we take an aspectual approach, we see there are two sets of aspectual functionings, aspects of the payment in which money acts as money, and aspects of the functioning that money enables.
In the first, we consider the lingual and social aspects and their foundational dependence on earlier aspects and how later aspects shape them. Of the latter, we might include trust (ethical functioning, for example, without which no economy would work for long. Of the former, money's lingual functioning depends foundationally, for example, on the physical characteristics of the medium that 'carry' symbols. We may understand the difference between the various forms of medium in which money has been signified by the aspects in which those media are meaningful:
If any of these fail, then that undermines the use of money.
Suppose we have a furniture maker purchasing timber. The conventional approach narrows the focus down to the exchange of money for timber (Figure 1(a)) whereas our approach sees that as merely one economic aspect of the entire process of furniture making (Figure 1(b)).
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Figure 1. Understanding buying timber for furniture making
(a) conventional approach; (b) aspectual approach
(Click of picture for full size)
Money enables not only the purchase of timber, but also thereby all the aspects of functioning in making the furniture, such as formative planning and making, aesthetic aspect of beauty or enjoyment, another economic aspect of not wasting the purchased timber, and the juridical aspect of doing justice to the timber's grain etc. Those are examples of positive functioning; there is also some dysfunctioning too, sometimes direct such as when timber is wasted, justice is not done to the grain, or poor design and construction, but frequently indirect and out of mind, such as climate change emissions and biodiversity loss if the timber is sources unsustainably.
Money flows. The receiver of the money then spends it on whatever they choose, such as food to keep themselves and their family alive, the suppliers of which then spend it on yet other things, and so on [Note: Money flow]. We may understand this flow as such multi-aspectual functioning at each stage. If we, instead, consider only the flow itself, in its economic and quantitative aspects, we miss all that and misunderstand all that is happening, probably undermining even the economy because of reductionism.
Therefore, money is an agreed token of exchange of value that enables us to obtain resources that enable proper human functioning to contribute to Multi-aspectual Good.
This implies responsibility. (Christians will remember Jesus' words "From those who have more, will more be expected.") Notice that responsibility is a juridical concept, rather than economic.
This approach can be applied likewise to non-monetary economic activity, including barter and even to some extent unpaid activity. So it offers a way towards an integrated understanding of these together.
However, we may go further. One RLDG participant pointed out that "Because I have some disposable income, I am free to use money as a form of voting for example one supplier or shopkeeper over another. If I believe that one supplier is more ethical than another, more local, or even I just like them, I can buy stuff from them rather than another." This could be seen as contributing to the Multi-aspectual Good of encouraging ethicality or some other value.
Other things that need working out like that include: currency exchange; the idea of "taxpayers' money"; Governments subsidies; budgets; ===== see entities file, 'Some Implications of Seeing Money as an Enabler of Human Functioning'
With all the above, we may return to consider a bit of validity in seeing money as an owned commodity, money as a thing and money as "mine and nobody else's." Money can indeed be a store of wealth. There are two parts to understand, thingness and ownership of money.
Money is a 'thing' in the same way as pride, love, megabytes and poems are things: human constructions arising from, gaining meaningfulness from, specific aspects. In the case of money, the aspects are economic, social and lingual: money is a token of exchange by which we can obtain resources that enable us to function more in contributing to Multi-aspectual Good. Philosophically, this is based on Dooyeweerd's idea that being arises from meaningfulness and functioning, especially his idea of structures of individuality, which define the kind of potential that a type of thing has.
Money is 'owned' in the sense that "I can do more" or, more precisely, it is a shorthand for "I have increased ability to function in certain ways that require resources I do not currently possess but now might be able to obtain." It is akin to greater freedom to control, but is it? The important point at issue here is not that I can do more, but what I do that is more. Is the more that I do Good, Harmful or Useless? (Christians might remember that Paul urged the followers of Jesus to work to earn money, not so that they would prosper, but that they might have something to give to the poor; he was thinking of the "do more" of what contributes to Multi-aspectual Good.)
This couldfrees us, at last, from the shackles of Smithian self-interest!
===== to be written