Got to talking this morning about value and worth - about how certain things can have a perceived or ephemeral value far in excess of their actual worth, in accordance with how much demand there is for them, I guess. To give an example, think back to that cultural disease, the 'Crazy Frog'. In its time it spread everywhere like a malignant tumour through every transmittable artery culture had. But what exactly was its actual worth? It was a stupid cartoon animation thing combined with an annoying noise. Made its creator an extraordinary amount of money though. I remember the TV ads for the Crazy Frog ringtone. You'd pay something like 3 quid to get this fucking screechy green bastard downloaded to your phone just because it was the thing to have.
Do any of you still have it, even if you bought it back then? Do you fuck. Millions of people gave money for something that had no actual worth, but had a perceived value that was determined by culture. This outlines part of tonight's hypothesis:
Anything can have value, even in the absence of worth.
Our economy, as it stands, is about to disintegrate. There's no point in trying pretend that it won't - no point thinking that all this 'quantitative easing' bullshit and bailing out of the banks is going to make the slightest bit of difference at all. The economic model we've become dependent on is doomed, and we have to find another solution. Fractional Reserve Banking (the core principle of this economic model as far as I can see it) is, and always has been, a con trick. The debts will never be paid because the system we work to means there's never going to be enough currency in existence to cover it. Therefore it's in a permanent state of default. We are slaves to it, and we've been conditioned to think it's our fault and our responsibility to pay it back. It isn't. But it IS our responsibility to find a new model that will replace it.
It all began because certain things were attributed as having worth. Basically, I'm talkin' gold and silver, if you wanna be simplistic about it. Precious metals and jewels. Things that were hard to find and lasted forever. Fair enough. Then at some point it was decided that paper representations of that actual 'hard' currency should act as trading vouchers in lieu of it. In essence, bits of paper (that's paper, the stuff you wipe your ass with) were given 'value'. And that's why we're in the fucking mess we're in now.
So if anything can be attributed as having 'value' then happy days. If those goons running the world economy were to suddenly decide that acorns were valuable, we'd use them as currency. Fucking works for squirrels. How about origami swans? Cheese? How about something non-physical?
How about altruism?
Here's a link to the wiki page of a free online book called Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. written by Cory Doctorow. I remember reading it many years ago, just after it came out. It outlines a system of ephemeral currency called wuffie, that anyone can access. Essentially, nobody is ever 'broke' in the sense that they all have access to enough wuffie, or currency, to feed and clothe themselves. But their actions toward other humans are rewarded or penalised accordingly by them having their account credited or debited in accordance with what they did. A rich man in Cory's world is a man that is loved and appreciated for what he does for others.
Can that work in a materialistic culture? Why the fuck not? We'd still make and sell things, and some things would still be out of certain peoples' spending range. But nobody would starve, nobody would struggle to afford clothes or electricity...as fucked as it sounds, look at it in this way. Right now, 'money' is the thing that has value. And 'money' is difficult for many people to obtain due to circumstance and often, just the lottery of where you were born. Altruism, on the other hand, can be generated by anyone at any time. So why not transfer the empty, hollow perceived value of 'money' onto something that really DOES have some worth?
JH
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