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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

Oh, also...

I don't buy your assertion (if I'm understanding you correctly) that the current system limits abundance. Resources are resources, and they continue to be what they are. I DO think that people mistakenly get caught up in seeing only the monetary system portion (I think you do too, honestly), taking it for the whole, missing the resources whose exchange it facilitates.

Thanks.

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The current system works on a premise of scarcity. The more scarce the product or commodity, the more money/profit can be made.

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Here's perhaps an extreme example, but it illustrates something most will be able to identify with:

The diamond industry. Its manipulation of scarcity artificially drives up price and profits.

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On the other end of the spectrum, you have air. It's so abundant, that there's no profit to be made.

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Pretty much everything else falls in-between. Take crops for example. Most of us have heard that the government pays farmers not to grow crops. Why would the government ever subsidize this, other than to help create artifical scarcity to prop up grain prices?

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Even money itself is kept scarce, to retain its value. For an example of what happens when money is no longer scarce, see Weimar Germany 1923.

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The current system requires scarcity, whether genuine or contrived.

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

OK, but begs the question. Some commodities simply ARE more rare than others, not because greedy people are manipulating them, but because they are relatively scarce.

Is that in question, or do either of you want to argue that all scarcity is contrived?

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
greed and corruption far precede our present day monetary system

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
Again, greed and corruption have been around for quite some time, and manage to thrive without a monetary system.

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In addition to being a medium of exchange, money is also a medium for the expression of greed and corruption.

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ORIGINAL: subfever

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In addition to being a medium of exchange, money is also a medium for the expression of greed and corruption.

The monetary system's foremost motivating principle is profit, or, the acquisition of money through the exploitation... of others. All players in the game must seek out a strategy to acquire income in order to survive.

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ORIGINAL: subfever
The psychological and sociological ramifications resulting from the priority of profit are of grave proportions when it comes to the conduct of human beings.

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ORIGINAL: subfever
It's time to evolve as a species, before we... and our environment... reach the point of no return.

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The monetary system's foremost motivating principle is profit, or, the acquisition of money through the exploitation... of others. All players in the game must seek out a strategy to acquire income in order to survive.

Profit interest almost always comes before human concern. The psychological and sociological ramifications resulting from the priority of profit are of grave proportions when it comes to the conduct of human beings.

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This lends itself to a distortion of values, including the manipulation of consumers by advertising. An example would be "fashion." Signature "Tommy Hilfiger" shirts, trade marked "Prada Bags," and flashy Rolex watches are examples of products where the actual utility or function of an items has lost relevance, with importance now derived by what the item represents ... giving further rise to collective greed, ego, and jealously.

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ORIGINAL: NeedToUseYou

You know I agree with subfever, if you isolate his viewpoint to large corporations/orgs. They really are completely without soul, they really are run purely from the profit motive, they have to because the leader(s) is/are transient and completely replaceable. As in the only goal that is permanent is profit.The exceptions to that rule are those companies that grew up from small to large under the same group of founders, but even then sometimes they are just as bad.

As opposed to small or even medium corporations, where most of the time, the owners, and decision makers are local, or semi-local, those businesses do take other factors into account beyond profit motive, at least most of the time.

If you can separate yourself from those you harm it becomes easier to harm, and international megacorps have that down to a science. If you run a single factory and you live in the area, well, it is much harder to condone dumping shit in the local stream, or screwing up the air, or pumping the ground water dry, though it can still happen. However, if I live in Chicago, and outsource one of my 3000 product lines to some shit hole factory in China, that dumps all kinds of shit in the river, and makes the birth defect rate skyrocket, well, I don't see it, it doesn't exist, and I can go pontificate what great products we are making and changing the world, and go to church thinking myself a good person.

IMO, this world needs far far far less megacorps, and far far far more small medium corps.

But I doubt it will happen anytime soon.

So, is it about money, sure, is it about ego? Sure, but that isn't going away, the best way to dull the effect of ego overpowering responsibility, is to make someone see the destruction they are causing in the pursuit of ego, and, IMO, you can not effectively do that when you are an International Megacorp. The leaders don't see the mess, they don't ever have to see it, they just see spreadsheets. I think if the president of BP were required to live in the worst effected area of the oil spill until it was cleaned up, it would be a pristine oasis. However, it's an annoyance to him to be dragged away from his country club meetings, and go to some hick part of the world, and see it.

Anyway, International Megacorps are the problem, IMO, and the quality that makes them a problem is that of size, and the reason size is a problem is because it allows diffusion of responsibility, and isolates those that could make a positive change from the reality of the situations caused by their decisions that ultimately are made by spreadsheets. LOL.

So, first goal, is bringing down any large organization, as that will cause a lesser degree of separation between the decision makers and the impact of those decisions, and then, in theory, barring complete sociopaths, the decisions would be more in line with the individuals view of himself, as a person that wants more good in this world, than bad.


But we don't live in a world with that viewpoint, we live in a world that will give billions to save megacorps and let the small medium businesses die. So, this is the world we live in, and until the focus changes from supporting the megacorps , megabanks, etc... then the world will only get worse.

IMO.

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You know I agree with subfever, if you isolate his viewpoint to large corporations/orgs. They really are completely without soul, they really are run purely from the profit motive, they have to because the leader(s) is/are transient and completely replaceable. As in the only goal that is permanent is profit.

The exceptions to that rule are those companies that grew up from small to large under the same group of founders, but even then sometimes they are just as bad.

As opposed to small or even medium corporations, where most of the time, the owners, and decision makers are local, or semi-local, those businesses do take other factors into account beyond profit motive, at least most of the time.