Money.

The concept of money fascinates me. It doesn’t actually exist, does it? It’s just a mechanism operating by mutual consent. It’s no more than countless billions of electronic impulses flashing about in the computers of the world’s banks, and being given the appearance of reality through scraps of paper and chunks of base metal issued by groups of people we call governments. It’s the most obvious of life’s illusions. And yet it dominates the very fabric of our existence.

Those who have ‘lots’ of this thing that doesn’t exist can have almost anything they want. Those who have ‘none’ of this thing that doesn’t exist can literally die of starvation. We have so rarefied the concept of value that we have completely lost touch with its relevance to worth. This strikes me as an odd way to carry on. What am I missing here?

On a more philosophical level, I argued in one old post that we shouldn’t persuade ourselves to contentment by comparing our situation with those worse off. In so doing, we are likely to fall prey to the corollary; we are equally likely to persuade ourselves to a state of discontent by comparing our situations with those who are better off. There was a news report today which said that a study had shown that those who compare their salaries to others’ are more prone to depression. Really? It took a study to work that one out, did it?

It reminded me of a ‘study’ carried out by a British university a couple of years ago. They spent a lot of time and money establishing whether ducks actually like water. It seems they do, so we can all now rest easy in the reassuring knowledge that lots of this thing that doesn’t exist has been wisely used in telling us something we really needed to know. Hallelujah!

I have little doubt that one day in the not-too-distant future, all this will come crashing down around our ears. And then the human race will be forced to re-evaluate the concept of value.