Money as Insulation

We have allowed money to become a commodity, when it used to be a token of a relationship.

In earlier, smaller societies it was easier. You had something I needed, but I didn’t have anything you needed, so money was used as a token of that imbalance. It was personal. That money might be passed on, but I carried the obligation. At some point, I would come back into contact with that money, and be required to deliver something I had in recognition of that first transaction.

It has a beautiful symmetry to it. Today of course, with the size and nature of markets, the relationship disappears. The money has gone emotionally cold. Money no longer signifies a personal relationship.

It seems a shame. The power now sits with the brokers and owners of a commodity. The money signifies nothing other than a quantity. There is no relationship between the person who has the mortgage, and the person who deposited the money that enabled the loan.

At one level I appreciate this is romantic nonsense, but at …