The Meaning of Money
Subtitle
People's Desire, Desire for Money
Presentation
What is the meaning of money today, and what meaning should it have? The latter is what interests me. But could we do without money, and why not? I leave this debate open to you, as the solution seems simple to me (in another world).
Summary: Our parents desire us, society desires us. We exist because we were desired, at least by society, even if our parents conceived us by accident. We are randomly fabricated. Society desires our talents. But we are not responsible for our talents, just as we are not responsible for our flaws, which were fabricated without our consent, since we were faced with the accomplished fact of existence. We did not fabricate ourselves, and if that were possible, we would all be gods or at least superhumans. Money represents the desire that others have for our work. The more our work is desired, the more likely we are to accumulate money and thus live comfortably and in well-being. But since it is others who fabricated us, why did they not fabricate us perfectly? Answer: because they do not know how. They do not even know how to educate perfectly. So, after having desired us, they desire our work, our talents, and they pay us according to what we are capable of accomplishing for them. Why must we suffer the double penalty of having been poorly fabricated and then having to live poorly because of our lack of talents, for which others—parents and complicit society—are responsible? Shouldn't our handicaps be compensated since we are human and nearly disconnected from our animality? Just because our fabricators and their associates are in the same situation does not change the problem.
Money represents people's labor, and it is evaluated based on the desire others have for that labor. This seems fair at first glance, but there are some problems with how this desire is measured and thus with the value of money, as well as with the very nature of money as an object.
Today, money is desired by all humans. Money represents human labor and thus humans themselves. Human labor is desired (to varying degrees). This should mean that humans are desired, which is generally the case before they are conceived. In that case, why this prevailing general aggression, this competition at all levels? Are we only desired for the work we do, and therefore for the money it represents? What an absurdity! Treating one's child like a slave is admitting to being one oneself.
In reality, humans are generally desired kindly at the outset but must make themselves desirable to obtain the money that will allow them to survive—and this is where the paradox lies.
When you bring a child into the world, one day you will tell them they must "make their own way." First of all, is it really their life since you imposed it on them? Is it not rather yours? And what would you like them to do in life? Certainly something they enjoy (because you love the child). But in that case, why must they earn their living based on how much others desire their work? Is it for their own pleasure or for that of others that they must live?
In this envisioned new society of hedonistic humanists, who would choose to be a garbage collector rather than a dilettante artist?
Since these dear humans are desired like money, why are there so many of them, all fabricated without caution, and why are they worth so little? We are all forced to exist, therefore innocent of existing. Is it ethical to impose existence and to impose it under poor living conditions? What is ethical about money that has lost its meaning?
To conclude this presentation, the existential question and money: why must all people who are desired by society still have to make themselves desirable once they are conceived?
Introduction
Humanity cannot consider ethics on a global scale if it does not treat money ethically, because money represents a part of humanity since it serves to pay for our well-being. We say: "earn a living." Is it ethical to have to earn one's living as a human being when existence has been imposed on us? Is it ethical to deserve this or that when we neither deserve our flaws nor our qualities, nor the exploitation of some by others, since existence itself is not a merit but an obligation?
Are we not all innocent of existing? Shouldn't life be an invitation to explore the planet and its wonders kindly, at least for a human being?
Money has become the symbol of desire, and we ourselves are treated by our own associates and fellow citizens according to whether they desire our abilities (or our flaws), even though we were all desired at birth by our parents and their associated fellow citizens.
This initial desire seems to have no value in our treatment by the nation. We must earn our existence even though we did not desire to exist, while our parents and society did desire us… Is this a very virtuous, very ethical system of association? Answer: no, it is not. Not to mention that it is a coerced association, which, according to social laws, is legislated by itself, making it a criminally constituted association.
People did not ask to exist. They are as they were fabricated and have no way to modify what they are. They are human and function as such, each with their qualities and flaws fabricated by others (their parents with society’s co-responsibility). The problem is that children are desired to be perfect, but none are. All have flaws and never conform to the specifications envisioned by their parents and society.
We were brought into the world because our parents desired us, and because society granted them this right (an animal customary practice). Society itself desires us. It needs new members to replace those who pass away. We are therefore all desired, yet we are worth nothing until we prove ourselves. We did not ask to exist, we did not ask for our physical or mental abilities, yet we must prove ourselves to exist within society. To earn a life we never asked for, we must deserve it. We must be desired by members of society in order to earn some money.
But we have no responsibility for the merits we are randomly granted. Why should these merits even be considered merits, since they are fabricated by others and are rather arbitrary?
Perhaps you believe that merit is earned despite the flaws of one's body or in spite of one's defects? That changes nothing, since you did not ask to exist, and therefore you did not ask to have to work to maintain your body. Why must you maintain your body just to survive without pain? Why did your loving parents (as they claim) fabricate you with a system of suffering if not to use it against you and force you to work? You argue that it is natural, that they had no control over the body model you have? False. Knowing that you will inevitably suffer and die is entirely equivalent. They initiated your fabrication with full knowledge of the consequences; they are responsible for it according to their own system of responsibility (a system that is absurd since the universe is "aresponsible," as is everything within it—see my article on aresponsibility).
Is it normal that money symbolizes the desire others have for what you do, even though you did not desire to exist, but they did desire your existence—while they simultaneously claim that your life belongs to you and that you belong to no one? If you belong to no one, why must you strive to please them through your work? And how can you deserve your fate, whether good or bad, when you are not responsible for being what you are, nor for your (supposed) qualities and certain flaws, since you are not responsible for existing?
My existence, which I did not desire for myself, requires money to be sustainable within our types of societies. I was fabricated with the need to sustain my body daily. I was even fabricated with sensations of thirst and hunger that are not merely signals but potential suffering if I do not pay them attention. I am enslaved to these signals, which were fabricated by others. I had no say in this. This need, along with the suffering that accompanies it and the threat of decline and death, is used by society to force me to work. I am therefore a slave. I was fabricated this way. Either I work (or steal or beg), or I suffer and die quickly.
Is it normal that after being desired, after desiring our existence, others—having fabricated us as we are—then require us to make ourselves desirable through our actions, which are merely the result of their fabrication? It is absurd!
If 100 people on an island were to reflect on what money should be, if they were 100 rationalists (see my article on rationalism), how would they proceed? How would they resolve the issue? What conclusion would they reach? I am not those 100 people, but I do live on an island, Earth, where money as an object already exists to the misery and detriment of billions of people.
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, every human being was, is, and will be innocent of existing, since they were forced to exist.
The meaning of money must take this fact into account, this absolute truth: each person was forced into existence to serve the family, the tribe, the nation. It must therefore be acknowledged that no one deserves their birth handicap or their future handicap, and no one deserves their (entirely relative) gifts. No one deserves their flaws, no one deserves their qualities. We have all been fabricated imperfect. Life is neither a merit nor a gift, for it was imposed. And since no one deserves their life more than another, then the principle of equality must be upheld from the beginning to the end of life, given that humanity has chosen to be ethical and to control its instinctive animality through rights and laws. This implies that if money is a game, it should serve exclusively for the superfluous (jewelry, paintings, games, etc.), but if money is not a game, then it may possibly serve the vital (food, health, housing, clothing, etc.), but only if it is used with complete fairness, for each human being has the right to a life of well-being since life was imposed upon them. (Within a context of humanism, as opposed to what I call animalism.)
Since we have imposed existence on each other, we cannot impose work to "earn our lives" without violating our own anti-slavery principles. (And if you are in favor of slavery, feel free to chain yourselves first.)
A life imposed by someone other than oneself (one’s parents), with the implicit consent of society, must be able to be lived in well-being constantly, for as long as possible, and does not need to be deserved. This is a fundamental basis for human existence, for peaceful and ethical coexistence.
If our view of humanity is animalistic, then we must abolish laws, rules, and also money. But as long as laws exist, we will remain human and must behave accordingly.
The meaning of money must be ethical, as humanity demands ethics for itself, since money represents us—it serves to purchase our food, our well-being, and thus our bodies, for an existence imposed by society.
The Meaning of Money Today
Money is both a symbol and an object. As a symbol, it broadly represents two things: the vital (rice) and the superfluous (diamond), and as an object, you can obtain it just like rice and diamonds. If you manage to untangle this mess, you will be very lucky. Money should not be an object, and it should not represent both the vital and the superfluous. This is clearly a system run by thugs and swindlers—therefore, by criminals. Our so-called democratic rulers, who thrive on this system, are criminals (but if you play along with Caesar, you are his accomplices, and too bad for you if you get swindled).
Money actually represents the desire for people’s activities as well as artificial or natural objects. This is absurd since, in principle, you have already desired the people—all people—since you are co-responsible for their existence.
Money should equitably represent people's labor, meaning it should represent people themselves. And labor should have the same value since people have the same value—at least concerning symbolic money. In the current system, labor does not have the same value. An hour of a worker's life does not equal an hour of their employer's life. Why?
Are you confusing the human rights you have imagined with our animal nature, as proven by Darwin and all our scientists? We are animals with an added dimension that we must take into account—otherwise, we might as well abolish all laws. But if we do not abolish them, and I see no way for you to do so in the current world, then respect human rights. We are animals capable of learning a great deal, including humanism.
When we possess money as an object, when we play with money as an object, or when we use money earned from the superfluous to maneuver the vital, we are playing with the lives of human beings (who did not ask to exist and participate in this ferocious game of life, where few are gifted for this game and few are put by their education and environment in the conditions to understand and participate in the game). To own more money than one's own labor can produce is to own slaves. Millionaires and billionaires are slavers.
Some people work for the vital, and others work for the superfluous. Why should those who work for the superfluous be better paid than the others, even if their work requires more education or qualifications?
Money has primarily become a tradable object itself, which is absurd. Money buys itself. Imagine what an AI could do if its encoded rule, its algorithm, were to play this game. Do you think billionaires would hesitate, given that they already have the means to create such an AI—if they haven’t done so already? The machine has beaten the greatest champions at chess and Go; it will do the same with money games and will enrich (already enriches) those who control it—the current billionaires.
Money represents materialized and/or digitized recognition, meaning it is accounted for as the acknowledgment of a service rendered to others. A service that consists of time spent using one's body or intellect, or indirectly a loan of money—which amounts to the same thing (except that money then becomes an object and is traded as such, with valuation and devaluation, which is unethical). Money is the memory of an act whose value should not change since all humans are equal, their lives must have the same value; their lives are desired and necessary (not necessary in an absolute sense, but necessary for the continuity of society).
It is then the ability to use this recognition of service rendered as a debt owed by anyone else who agrees to settle it in exchange for that money, representing this accounting entry. This recognition of debt is not nominative but only valued, so it can be transferred to anyone who wants it—and generally, everyone appreciates having some, since it can be reimbursed in nearly any store for almost anything. Possessing many recognitions of debt makes the holder rich off the labor of others. (It would therefore be enough to collectively stop working in exchange for money to bankrupt a billionaire!)
Money, therefore, represents a flying recognition of debt, moving across the planet, which anyone can trade, and which is never canceled. Money is thus passed like a relay baton, indefinitely (humanity runs and never stops!).
The objects we buy are made by people. It is therefore the work of these people that is indirectly desired. When robots have entirely replaced humans, and not a single human works anymore—not even to oversee their activities—then humans will finally be able to fulfill their true hedonistic dreams without being bound to earning a life that was imposed upon them. (Our existence was imposed on all of us by our parents; no one escapes this obligation, and no one is a volunteer for existence before existing.)
(The obligation to exist.) This money or recognition of debt can therefore circulate until death and never be reimbursed to the person holding this recognition of social debt. If it were a non-socialized debt, but an individual one, upon the death of one of the parties, the debt would be canceled. But this is not the case with social currency, which is not nominative. If you are lucky enough to come across a fortune, you can have a debt repaid to you that no one ever contracted towards you. Isn't that a fine flaw in the system?
It is also possible to gain this money or recognition of social debt through inheritance without ever having worked, meaning without ever having rendered the slightest service to anyone (you are, in a way, the lucky heir of Uncle Christobald’s treasure). Conversely, under this system, it is also possible to inherit social debt at birth and be required to repay it simply by having been forced into existence, with society’s complicity, through indebted parents. Yet, one cannot inherit parental and social debts at birth without also inheriting everything that culture has produced—fire, the wheel, glass, paper, etc.—which belongs to the public domain, generates enormous wealth, and should therefore be equitably distributed among all past and new members of society without waiting for a person (who was desired) to become profitable and "deserve" (without having asked to participate in the game of life) their share of the accumulated cultural treasure passed down by our ancestors.
Society is always a creditor—or at least should be—since it fabricates money, which is quite convenient. It should take advantage of this to benefit everyone by eliminating inequalities (which no one desired, since no one asked to exist). Money, which originally served only to record a service rendered to a fellow member of the tribe, became a means for the king to organize the transfer of his subjects’ labor into His Majesty’s coffers. Our modern societies, which are no longer true ancient kingdoms, continue this process while having forgotten the original meaning of money. Human rights, where do you stand?
Society has involuntarily delegated more than (85%?) of money creation to private banks, producing an impalpable digital currency (read Nobel Prize winner Maurice Allais, who does not hesitate to compare bankers to counterfeiters). (And I add my own observation: since this system operates on a global scale, it means that people's salaries worldwide are devalued accordingly, since money represents the labor of individuals.)
The mere obligation to exist makes you a debtor because you are incorporated, without your consent, into a society that carries debt—enormous debt—which is called social slavery. This is compounded by the second obligation: when you become able, you must work to buy your own body, meaning to feed it. Don't worry, they don’t make you pay for air—just for solids and liquids. A human life is therefore a long series of actions performed by a slave for the benefit of other slaves, which does not change the concept of slavery. And to ensure that you are forced to work, your parents fabricated you with the function of suffering: if you do not eat, you suffer from hunger; if you do not drink, you suffer from thirst; if you do not dress, you suffer from cold—or end up in prison, since nudity is prohibited by law (just to make sure you go to work in case hunger and thirst are not enough).
After mommy and daddy release you into the wild, you have about three days before dying of thirst—more than enough time to find a job...
The flaws of this system are countless. Those who understand them and master the art of plucking the pigeon can take advantage of it at will. Obviously, it is better to be a finance specialist than a baker. Learning either profession takes the same amount of time, but you will accumulate millions, even billions, much more easily if you are dealing with wheat (money) rather than flour.
Capitalists and rulers do not want everyone to be a finance specialist. No, they seek only the best brokers, and soon they will no longer need humans at all—they will have AI at their complete disposal. AI will operate 24 hours a day, every day, and in 1,000 years of uninterrupted operation, it will have no human competition. Your only option will be to (gently) eliminate the capitalist and revise the AI’s algorithm to redistribute money among all citizens, whether "deserving" or not (since you are humanist!).
What Does Money Represent for Each of Us?
For a farmer, a worker, a teacher, an executive, a boss, a banker, a shareholder, a minister, a parliamentarian, a judge, a police officer, a lawyer, a model, an artist, an athlete, a retired athlete, a poor person, a rich person, a property owner, a tenant, a monk, a homeless person, a sick person, someone disabled from birth, someone disabled by life, a healthy person, a suicidal person, a dying person, someone from the third world, someone from the fourth world, a tourist, a vacationer, a genius, an idiot, an amateur philosopher-writer?
A boss’s salary is a compulsory levy on the labor of workers—it is not the workers who democratically decide their boss’s salary. Workers, therefore, pay a tax to their boss, as if the company were an independent state (the mechanism is even more pronounced in large corporations). We find the same principle with bankers, shareholders, parliamentarians, ministers, the President, and all civil servants. The people fill the treasury from which certain individuals draw at will. Isn’t democracy supposed to function 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? Aren’t the people the true owners of the land, the shipowners of the Nation, the ones giving orders, the decision-makers? If someone worked for you, wouldn’t you verify their work, evaluate them, and negotiate their salary? Well, these individuals—Presidents, civil servants, and business leaders—work for the people. Their salaries should be negotiated with the people. Certainly, they were desired, but just as every citizen was desired to populate society.
If all customers of a bank simultaneously verified the presence of their money, they would see that their accounts are credited. Yet, this is a lie by the bank because it would be unable to reimburse everyone if all depositors decided to withdraw their money at the same time.
(Ways to "Earn" Money: Work, Gambling, Stock Market, etc.)
Some people are paid based on the actual work they accomplish (by sweat, by weight, per piece, by difficulty), others are paid according to what they produce, the time they spend in the company, or based on what is purchased from them, the pleasure they give to spectators or listeners and their number. Some are paid to make others work, others to supervise them, some for their manual skills, or for their imagination, their voice, their inventiveness, their strength, their eloquence, their physical beauty, or simply for their fame, etc. Why? And why are superfluous actions often much better paid than vital actions for everyone, such as those performed by farmers or garbage collectors? Isn't a human a human, a human whom the existing ones forced into existence to be an equal associate? A human desired by all?
A person born with a disability, a collateral damage of existence, should they suffer the double penalty of their physical and/or intellectual deficiencies by being unable to "deserve" a good life?
A nice example: you are a singer-songwriter. It takes you six months to compose a wonderful song (according to you). But let’s go back in time—you are in the middle ages. The minstrel that you are runs from castles to village squares, "earning his keep" day by day, sleeping in stables at night. Modern times: you record your song on a thousand DVDs, distribute them in stores, and if it works, you print a million, and why not seven billion! You have done the same work as the minstrel, but you have multiplied it like loaves of bread—you are Jesus Christ, the son of the god of music. Why are your six months of labor worth more than mine, me, the baker? All this just because you can reproduce the "result" of your work (not the work itself) in as many copies as you want? And you’re not even the one doing the exhausting job of reproduction, unlike the baker! There’s an even more profitable method—no need to produce physical copies anymore, you sing, or play football, on television, and you are paid according to audience ratings via SACEM or equivalent. Isn't that a brilliant scam! Why should sending a word into two thousand ears be worth more than sending a word into two ears? You are not doing extra work—it is the air or the electron that carries the sound. Does this singer deserve their constrained existence more than the baker? Do they deserve nature's gifts that the other does not have? In the value of the desire for life necessary to society, is a song worth more than a baguette, is one person worth more than another?
We no longer sort our chromosomes as animals do through the law of the strongest or the cleverest, since everyone can find a partner with social consent. This means that the ugliest, the weakest, and the most foolish can reproduce freely, to the detriment of the evolution (physical and mental progress) of the species by animal criteria. So, what is the point of playing at being animals with our national territories, our social hierarchies, our wars, and the pursuit of the most deserving in every field?
Money does not only represent the visible product of people’s labor; it also represents the time spent producing ideas or other invisible and especially unmeasurable forms of human activity. Who measures this? If thought work is important, why should it have more value than physical labor? Why should the brain be worth more than the muscle? Since both were imposed upon us, along with their respective capabilities, their flaws, and their qualities… Using one's brain or muscles for money rather than for personal satisfaction or for the common good is merely a matter of culture. Currently, at the bottom of the fatal slide, I certainly do not work for money or for glory; I simply enjoy untangling the messy threads of my thoughts, and if it helps others, well, all the better.
The total amount of money on the planet represents the collective fund of labor produced by human beings. Naturally, the more a person hoards money within this mass—whose ownership is blurred by the general trickery of rulers and financiers—the more they take away from others. To get rich is to impoverish others, and since money represents labor, it forces the poor to work more and more to obtain the bare minimum to survive, thereby making them a slave—the slave of the rich, who decides in what field the poor must work for them.
It is easy to demonstrate that enriching certain individuals, even without appearing to lose anything oneself, inevitably impoverishes the rest. The progression of poverty is as invisible and inexorable as the slow movement of the hour hand on a clock, whereas the rise in wealth of a few is as noticeable as the ticking of the second hand. For example, you buy a ticket for a show, a football match, fully willing to pay without going into debt, and you enrich the football player (and especially the sponsors). On the surface, you have lost nothing—but where does the footballer’s money go? It’s like sending your money to the other side of the world—there is very little chance that this money will return to your personal economic circuit. Your money vanishes into the stratosphere, and the so-called "trickle-down effect" is nothing but a mere drip—don't count on downpours, let alone monsoons.
For the Wealthy, Money Never Circulates Back to You.
For the wealthy, it is easy to ensure you never see your money again. All they have to do is circulate objects or properties of extremely high value indefinitely, selling and reselling them among the ultra-rich while continuously increasing their value (land, buildings, paintings, precious stones, yachts, etc.—the list is endless). Your small change is thus siphoned into this never-ending cycle, which preserves money better than any bank vault, ensuring you never see its color again. This allows billionaires to manipulate entire nations at will. Billionaires have no borders. They play with money from the superfluous while forcing you to toil to obtain the money you need for survival. These well-organized billionaires do everything in their power to ensure that nations with socialist inclinations collapse, whereas, without their underhanded interventions, democracy—through sheer popular weight—would favor socialism and humanism.
Money is the culmination of Murphy’s Law when it comes to human exchange, just as humanity itself is the ultimate product of Murphy’s Law, or the law of maximum inconvenience, brought about by Evolution.
(What Is the Origin of Money, and What Has It Become?) Money is a prehistoric concept. It likely originated as a form of barter, essentially a memory of exchanged goods. Today, however, money has become one of the primary causes of human misery (the first being, of course, the excessive number of humans on the planet). The concept of money has been entirely perverted. It now serves to measure labor—whether human or machine-based—food, health, and objects, including countless unnecessary ones. It also serves to quantify pleasure, relaxation, and leisure, yet not volunteer work or education, which are also forms of labor. Money is a concept that measures both the tangible and the abstract. But more than anything, it has fused the essential with the superfluous, the real with the virtual. To change the world, we must reevaluate this concept—perhaps even split it in two... Maybe there should be two currencies: one for necessities and another for luxuries—one that measures life and another that measures indulgence. The first would be a serious matter, the second a mere game... Today, only the latter exists, yet many of us die from this stupid game played among billionaires!
Money was once a symbol created within small human groups. At the time of its invention, there were very few people on Earth. Today, this symbol of trust between individuals—once valid in ancient times—is being used in a dual form by billions of humans. It is ruining the lives of billions. What was acceptable in prehistory is no longer viable today. We must erase everything and start from scratch. The entire global political system is based on an economy that is itself based on this archaic symbol. This must change. Today, money symbolizes both necessities and luxuries. But necessities cannot be bought or sold. We cannot sell or buy what represents us—our lives—without it being slavery. That rice, that soup, that salad—once they pass through our mouths, they become us. Out of habit, and because we have no other choice, we buy a ring, a painting, a DVD, a kilo of apples, a pizza, all with the same currency. We even go so far as to turn games into money, while people die from lack of it. Television entertains us with money games. It is vile. It is blind slavery. We don’t even realize our stupidity when we commit this immoral act of confusing the superfluous with the essential.
But, these obsessive billionaires will argue, "We, too, were forced into existence, just like the poor fools (in the Rabelaisian sense) whom we exploit, and since they keep having children, it means they accept being dupes. Otherwise, they would force us to negotiate or constrain us democratically."
A Proposal: Splitting Money into Two Currencies.
Dividing money into two types—one for necessities and one for luxuries—is an idea that must first be considered for its ethical implications. If it is just, it must be implemented, regardless of its immediate economic repercussions. The tens of billions of people yet to be born will thank us for it. If the 20th century marked the end of large-scale world wars, perhaps the 21st century will mark the end of individual capitalism! Hope—or rather, act.
Money represents people’s labor, and each person's freedom ends where another's begins. If anything must be controlled, it is money. "Monetary liberalism" is the battle cry of slavers.
Why should the rich feel guilty about amassing even more wealth when you continue mass reproduction, providing them with an endless supply of slaves? Obviously, as long as the poor keep reproducing, they justify the existence of the rich. Because to reproduce is to accept the rules of the world as they are and to impose them on a person who never asked to exist—who will then have to endure the absurd rules you, the poor, impose upon them by forcing them into existence—your own child. (Is that clear enough?)
You desire your child, and therefore, you desire the child of another. But by desiring the money that your desired children will generate, you negate the love you should have for them. You only desire them to serve you, to serve your ideas. Do your ideas hold more value than their suffering? Do your ideas hold more value than your disabled children, treated as collateral damage?
There Is No Reason for Poverty to Exist
Yet, there is no reason for poverty to exist since money is public—it is created by the state—and since we are forced to exist, we are also forced to eat every day. This is known to all, including the government, which is responsible for managing society and, therefore, new entrants into it.
The mere anticipation of a birth—demanded by the state and society, implicitly yet undeniably—requires the anticipation of providing for that person’s food, well-being, and security throughout their life.
Money, which represents food, well-being, and security, must be available to every individual without them having to request it—because their existence was forced upon them.
Why Bring a Child into the World if Their Well-being Is Not Already Guaranteed by You and Society?
Today, there is no longer a need to force people to work through violence, nor even to tell them explicitly—they have internalized the demand. Silent money has replaced the shouting dictatorship. If you want to eat, if you want money, work! There is no longer anywhere you can settle freely to live, find shelter, and cultivate your own land. Your parents knew this. Did they prepare your share of the cradle that is Earth before forcing you to exist? Is this cradle clean and safe? Is it hygienic? Is it not dangerous? Because, as you may know, endangering someone’s life is a crime, and it becomes an even greater crime when it leads to suffering and death. You, the child of your criminal parents, are "the other."
It is not fair to put everyone at the foot of a wall when there is only one place at the top. Yet this is the pyramid-like system applied to money. Humanism is excluded from this concept of money, because this concept is not ethical.
When people speak of "liberalism," they must understand that this kind of "liberalism" is the exact opposite of freedom, equality, and especially fairness. This "liberalism" is a system of competition, and therefore of hierarchy. It is a form of financial slavery because in this system, where money represents people, it allows them to be exploited without restraint. Even if we all started on equal footing at birth, it is impossible for everyone to become a billionaire, to be a President, or to own a private island. There is no way to achieve true equality when equally competent individuals desire the same thing. At birth, we are all at the base of the pyramid—this is where equality ends. There is only one place at the top. And we are not even equal at the start because we are not born at the same time—some are already halfway up, and even that section has limited spots, while the summit is always already occupied. The starting line is not the same for everyone. Furthermore, many individuals have neither the desire nor the physical or intellectual capacity to climb. And as already mentioned, all of a person’s faculties were randomly assigned to them; they were confronted with the accomplished fact of existence. No one, obviously, ever chose to compete in this pyramid-climbing contest before existing!
We are not in a meritocratic system; we are in a lottery-based system (the lottery of life) and a martingalocratic system—that is, if you are lucky enough to have wealthy parents or to stumble upon the winning strategy that allows you to extract the most from others, then you have won at the game of human social life. And even the so-called merit that comes from our abilities is not truly a merit, because one does not deserve a flaw that results from an unwanted fabrication. The nation is not looking for merit—it is looking for people who function better than others, those who fit the role. The others, who had no say in what they are and what they can do, become the system’s subordinates—the countless interchangeable cogs. Humans classify themselves in a way that optimizes the functioning of the nation, which in turn competes with and defends itself from other nations. But what is the purpose of a nation-society? The answer: to protect its members from the hardships of the life that was imposed on them! If that is the case, then why impose life in the first place?
Money: A Necessary Evil or a System to Be Replaced?
Money seems like a necessary evil for exchanging labor, but is it really necessary? Could we keep money as a system of labor exchange while eliminating capitalism? In other words, how can we remove the weaknesses of this exchange system and ensure that those who exploit it—the calculators and profiteers—are either excluded or controlled, as they are in casinos when they are caught? When money is manipulated like a virtual commodity, people forget that it represents labor. How do we prevent this? How do we ensure that hoarding money is recognized for what it truly is—hidden and indirect slavery?
If human society as a whole is seen as a casino by millionaires and billionaires, then let’s do what casinos do: exclude those who cheat and have found a winning strategy (martingale)! Ban fraud, luck, inheritance, and financial schemes. Ban enrichment, which is nothing more than slavery—an imprescriptible crime against humanity. (I do not get to define what constitutes a crime, but when I see one, based on its definition, I call it out.)
Conclusion
How can we transition from the current system to an ethical one? Perhaps you should start by curbing the money-gorging of the Harpagons of this world. The game of life is not a casino—it is not even a game; it is a chore for most humans and an abyss of intolerable suffering for many of them. No one asked to exist. Those who lack the abilities to carve their path suffer the double penalty of their deficiencies and the consequences they never wanted but must endure due to cultural constraints. Seize the money of the Harpagons and use it in ways they refuse to—invest it in their place if necessary, but always redistribute it equitably, because from the moment we exist, we are all heirs to the global cultural legacy and our extraordinary tools. No one asked to exist. We are all innocent of existing and just as "aresponsible" as the universe that brought us about. There is no single responsible party, no group of responsible parties—the money gluttons were fabricated and educated by all of you.
Every person must receive their due without having to beg for it. Since we were all brought into the world for society’s needs, we must be treated fairly, not based on supposed merits that we owe to our constructors and educators. Society owes us well-being from the moment the decision was made to begin our construction. If you use money for exchanges, respect this principle.
We are classified within our societies and remunerated based on how much others desire our work. But we should not be classified if it is truly us as whole individuals that are desired. Is this the case? Are we to be ranked based on how well the existing members of society succeeded in our fabrication, rather than on our own merits—since we did not initiate our own fabrication, nor did we construct our own body and intellect?
End – E. Berlherm
Contextual Sentences
People prefer their ideas over their own lives, let alone the lives of others.
In communism, the people share everything. In capitalism, the people share everything to enrich one man. In the end, there’s very little difference—so what are you complaining about?
Knowing human stupidity, your own stupidity, why did you fabricate me to be as stupid as you? Do I deserve the stupidity you imposed on me without my consent (obviously)?
Animals follow only the law of the strongest—it is the same for humans individually, socially, and nationally. So why do we have so many additional laws pretending that we are something other than animals?
To produce 1,000 billionaires, we must fabricate 8 billion humans, including at least two billion who are aware of their own misery.
There must be some purpose to public debt—this obsession shared by every country in the world to be in debt, while simultaneously telling households not to accumulate debt, is rather strange. → Who benefits from this crime?
Finance kills far more people than AIDS—what are governments waiting for to find a cure?
Most people pay three taxes: direct income tax, sales taxes on purchases, and most importantly, the labor they perform for society (working to "earn" the life that was imposed on them), and this same income is then taxed for the majority (double taxation).
Money is like air—it circulates across the entire Earth, and its "purity" should be regulated like air to prevent its pollution.
With a single currency (for both necessities and luxuries), life is always indexed to the same type of currency as material goods, even though life itself does not change in value, no matter where on Earth it exists. Life always has the same cost, while material goods are optional. Playing with the price of sugar, wheat, or rice is vile.
The majority of people are poor and want wealth redistribution. Why has that form of democracy not been implemented? Just like many other majority-supported ideas…
In France, the poverty of ten million people is the equivalent of a silent petition. Why do the rulers pretend not to hear it?
Even food is taxed at purchase by the government—food, which is the precursor of our own bodies. Our bodies are thus taxed by the state, even as it desires us to contribute to GDP.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that we must be made to understand why we pay taxes (or "contributions"). Yet, no one has ever explained it to me. At 21, when I reached adulthood, no one had me sign anything, I was not given a social contract, and no one verified whether I had truly understood the life and society that had been imposed on me.
I do not understand how a society can call itself democratic when 80% of the world's wealth is in the hands of 20% of humanity. Isn't democracy supposed to be about the majority? The rich must believe that those who hold the majority of the money are the only ones entitled to have a voice.
The wealthy class, to avoid class struggle and the revolutions it triggers, ensures that randomness occasionally enriches a few, so that the hope of becoming rich exists in everyone’s mind—even the poorest. Hence lotteries and televised game shows.
Wealth is the result of a breach of trust because a person who does not know the methods cannot become rich. Not everyone can be a finance expert, a broker, or a banker.
The obligation to pay taxes turns us into social tools, into social slaves.
The race for billions is theoretically open to all humans, but there are only a few available spots at the top of the exponential pyramid.
The real tobacco vendor is the state since it takes the biggest cut from a pack of cigarettes (80%). The state is therefore the owner of tobacco and markets it without dealing with its consequences. The same goes for fuel and many other goods.
We, all humans, all of humanity, are the heirs of everything that has ever been invented by people—from fire to rockets.
Money is a public good that must be shared.
If you choose to participate in the game, don’t complain about the rules.
Capitalists steal the people's money—the money of their labor. They steal it through legitimacy rather than legality. But legality that is not legitimate is outside of human rights. Legitimacy respects fairness. Stolen money does not belong to the thieves—it must be taken back from them.
But tell me, if you are afraid of humanity disappearing, what harm did it do to you, in the half-eternity before you existed, not to exist?
Animals reproduce mechanically without knowing why. Human beings do not know any better, but they justify this immensely consequential act through various religions, and when they lack religious justification, they invoke the concept of species. In every case, the child serves as an antidepressant.
The desired child is like desired money.
Procreation serves only those who already exist, and no one controls it. I was not fabricated for my sake—I was made to serve the system, to serve the ideas of those who believe in this system, the mechanics of continuity.
Individual capitalism is slavery. Slavery is an imprescriptible crime. The slavers of the system must obviously be eliminated.
To a capitalist, volunteer work is a waste of time, and thus, a waste of money.
The foundation of human ethics: one should only initiate the automatic fabrication of a human being—a person—if it can be guaranteed that they will never suffer. Who can guarantee that? Answer: No one.
Parents who act (by having children) without breaking social laws do so with society’s implicit consent. The members of society are therefore either co-responsible or accomplices (depending on perspective) in each person’s actions.
By legislating, society acknowledges that laws are not innate and that the people it fabricates must learn them. Society is therefore responsible for this education, as it is co-responsible for the fabrication of individuals. This applies to all behaviors that are not innate. And as for behaviors resulting directly from one's fabrication, they are obviously the responsibility of the fabricators and their "accomplices."
We work because we are forced to, in order to survive. We perform labor for the nation. This is the only accurate way to describe our activities in a democracy. It is a form of slavery since we are coerced into it. Therefore, one must ask: why, among the slaves that we all are, are some public servants (privileged slaves) paid more than ten times the salary of an average or normally paid worker? How can one person work ten times more than another who works eight hours a day? A person with a lower IQ is not responsible for it, yet they must suffer both that flaw and a poorer quality of life because of it. A double punishment. This is where the animalistic associative and hierarchical system leads us—it exists to protect us from other societies that do the same (a miserable state of mind!).
Today, among major nations, the most dangerous tensions for peace are economic. Why? Because they compete for access to other nations' markets. Solution: abolish large nations. Does Switzerland frighten the world, even though it is one of the wealthiest countries? Another solution: erase all borders.
In a society, its members are co-responsible—accomplices in each member's actions, whether good or bad. Thus, an individual’s crime is committed with the complicity and co-responsibility of the entire society.
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