Money
Discussions about money are very common because it has such an influence on the way we live. Because of this I want to gain a systematic and informed understanding about how money works, how it was created and how it is regulated.
So far, my studies into money have led me to believe that it is being applied in an inconsistent and illogical manner. It is also becoming apparent that this is symptomatic of the system itself.
Definition
I think that the definition of money would go something like this:
A universal mechanism for exchanging human activity.
What this means is that one would give money to a person when they performed any sort of service which we found useful and we would be payed by them whenever we served them. I used to think that this is what the current form of money does but have since learnt that it does not.
Problems With Money
I frequently notice oddities and outright errors in everyday monetary systems. I will only describe a couple of examples here, though.
Example 1: Bus Fares
One would expect the price for a ticket on a bus to reflect the cost to the operator of running that bus, with the purchaser on it. However, there are “return” tickets which cover both the outward and return journey which cost less than the equivalent pair of “single” tickets.
The exact same amount of activity has to take place, with the bus arriving at the same time and carrying the same mass along the same route consuming the same amount of fuel and so on.
These identical levels of activity are given two significantly unmatched prices.
Example 2: Internet Service Provider
My family’s ISP charges eighteen pounds (£18.00) per month for our three-hundred kilobit-per-second (300kbps) connection, regardless of how long we use it for. If we did not use it at all for that month we would be billed for the same price as if we used it often.
Either the only activity required is the normal maintenance, or the activity required is the electricity required to send, amplify, redirect, return, synchronise and manage the data transfer generally added with the cost of keeping the electronic devices which do this cool.
These significantly unmatched levels of activity are given one identical price.
Conclusions
It is clear that money has many problems and that its value is not strictly defined. Much like language, it is defined nebulously where each individual participates in a national or global exchange and each has influence. This influence is not evenly spread in either system and influences are not well synchronised. However, this lack of syncronisation or overriding control enables a good degree of flexiblity which is reflective of human life.