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Apologetics

What is money?

From a Usenet newsgroup:

It is the illusion that Money is the answer to everything, and that, if we only have enough of it, and/or, spread it around enough, the Golden Age will arrive.

King Midas found out, the hard way, that you can’t eat gold, and the idea that some Supreme Being, such as an Almighty IMF, can help, may prove an Illusion.

What is money? It is a means of exchange, or, in the case of capitalist economics, a means of exploitation – the plutos who have it, have control over the proles, who do not.

If you live in a desert, what do you want? Water, and unless you can deliver water, then money is not much use – unless to pay for a desal plant, water distillation unit, pipelines, or whatever. That is, you need to grow food, fibre crops, etc.

So, unless the IMF can fund practical help, then it might as well go into voluntary liquidation, such liquid being used….

Meanwhile, business interests will do almost anything except stop polluting the atmosphere – the cause of droughts, floods, and other erratic weather.

But you don’t live in a desert? Alright, what causes the World Recession? (1) profit-makers and workers not coinciding, so the differential gets too great and the economy collapses, aided by (2)

over-production, driven by competition. A switch from capitalism to socialism is needed unless you want this boom-and-slump to be cyclical.

The IMF is, itself, the joke? A symbol of the ultimate in exploitation. If you make a Profit you are ripping off someone or other.

If money is a means of exchange, then it is an equitable swap in value, and any surplus or deficit is a temporary imbalance which needs rectifying – much less Profit or Loss.

There is no upper limit on profit, just as there is no lower limit on wages. (Why else do Oz industries move off-shore, if not for lower wages?)

In other words, the whole basis of our Economy is due for a re-think – otherwise, the laughs continue.

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Yes, trade unions can be as bloody-minded as any boss, and that unions should evolve to the next level, which is democratisation of industry – workers and shareholders becoming one and the same.

Yes, mythology decrees that we are all beholden to the Enterprising Businessman, whose Great Brain is throbbing with New Ideas for Our Benefit.

But, as “Who Killed the Electric Car?” demonstrates, once an Entrenched Status Quo takes over, there’s not too much enterprise left – except how to preserve Vested Interests.

The Transnationals monopolise most facets of The Economy, and you have to be really inventive and enterprising to find even a niche market nowadays, outside their domain.

So, let’s not fall for Free Enterprise mythology, except that – the more enterprises you own, the freer you are. Take-over of existing companies is where most enterprise occurs today; and, as for enterprise in pure Finance, well, we all know where that has got us.

The absurdity of so-called Competition is well demonstrated in movie “Duplicity” (or Duplication, as it could be called) where two rival cosmetic-toiletry firms, in fierce competition, and selling virtually identical products, will engage in industrial espionage, and counter-espionage, no holds barred.

Also, we now have Pres.Obama hoping for a Fall of the Caribbean Wall, so Cuban workers can enter into the world-wide Utopia of Plutocratic capitalism.

(It would be terrible if Communism was actually allowed to succeed, which is the main reason for the 47-year trade embargo.)

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