So today's class was very interesting, but what was more interesting to me was the last discussion we had on the capitalistic system we live under. Marcie's point really resonated with me in so many different levels because it is something I always think about.
In class, Marcie was saying that there are so many different concepts and ideas 'out there' that have to be explored before saying that capitalism is the only way, or the right way. On the other hand, Jack (or John?) was saying that if we want to come up with a new system, it has to include some way of capitalism (I might have misinterpreted their angels, so I apologize if I did, but this is what I understood).
I always have discussions about this with people around me and myself because it is true, it is extremely complicated! How can we live without money?? How does that work?? Some people literally cannot conceive the idea of a world without money. However, I don't understand how this is possible... If you really think about it, when we humans first existed we were very animal-like. The first homo sapiens sapiens to ever be on earth were primitively surviving, satisfying their basic needs with natural resources. Then they started finding ways to communicate... I guess corporal expressions, pointing at stuff, drawing, etc. until they reached a point where they created their own language in order to be able to talk to each other, right? Well, I think this is where the problem began.
Throughout the years of evolution, communication became more complex and we started creating concepts and giving value to things. My question is, how did we go from exchanging goods to monetary currency? who gave a coin or a bill (which is nothing more than a piece of paper, that comes from trees) its value? how did this happen?
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that WE CREATED MONEY AND WE GAVE IT VALUE; therefore, there IS hope: there IS a reality without money. If we hadn't created this complex and fancy communication system, we would have never been able to attach value to un-natural things - money in this case. Why can't we go back to how things were at the begging?
Okay, I have a crazy theory. I believe that once we started communicating with each other, we started over-evolving. I believe we humans as we are today, so 'civilized', complicated and fancy is not what was meant to be for this world. We were supposed to play the role of the mammals (let's say, maybe more advanced than animals) that we are, but we weren't supposed to become this monster to the world. I believe we weren't supposed to evolve so much to the point in which we started creating artificial things and giving value to unnatural stuff.
I dont know if any of this makes sense anymore, but I'll conclude with Fight Club. In my opinion, if project mayhem was to be executed in every country of the world, capitalism would be eliminated and we would HAVE to come up with another system. The reason why we haven't, is because we haven't had the need... those who control it don't need it (or want it) to change.
But what if one night all the corporations with control over capital were burnt down, meaning the records of each person's bank account would be lost, all the stock exchange data would be lost, etc. All of those numbers that people worked their whole lives saving... poof! gone! what would the world do then? Life would still happen, we would still be alive, breathing, hungry, sleeping, etc... so realistically speaking, there HAS to be a way to live without money because that is how we started in the first place! The problem is, convincing those with financial power to understand this. If this were to happen, it wouldn't matter how much money you used to have, because now nobody has any anymore...
Right now, this is the only alternative life-style that is realistic in terms of how our society is already established. Capitalism is and will be extremely complicated to defeat, unless we rebuild ourselves from scratch, creating new, healthy communities, and maybe then, changing society. This is a link of my dream place to live in :) It supports my views and ideas on how much we have over-evolved and become so greedy that we have created this unhealthy, unnatural space to live in, with a superficial and unnatural society as well. Please scroll down the page and watch their video, it is absolutely incredible!
https://kaluyala.com
Estefania, I really appreciated your interpretation of last weeks class discussion. Capitalism and human fixation with money is a truly fascinating and complicated concept. I agree with you when you say that, Yes! There is a way to live without money! The fact that as humans, we are constantly giving value to objects and concepts is true. If we didn't do this, then why else would pieces of paper and lumps of medal mean so much to us. While reading your commentary, I couldn't help but think of De Saussure and his interpretation of linguistics. He explains in his writings that language and words, communication and sentences in general, would not be significant if we did not give them significance. Realistically, words and sentences are just long, strung together sounds that humans decided to give meaning to. The meanings of these words, as well as the sounds of these words, can change with the different groups of humans located in different parts of the world. Much like words, the monetary value of something is established by the value and significance that we give it. Monetary value, realistically, does not actually exist without humans. And as with words, the meaning and extent of this value changes depending on who is interpreting and determining value. Many of the historic and influential works of art we find today as "priceless", so valuable that we cannot fathom an accurate measure of monetary value, we considered invaluable at their time of creation. Money itself has different values as you travel around the world; our American dollar is considered less valuable or more valuable depending on the economic state of a country in comparison to ours. Value is completely created within our own minds and cultures. Perhaps to solve the problems with capitalism, we need to simply change the values that we place on certain aspects of our Westernized culture, but not only monetary value, but ethical or moral value as well. I say "simply", as the idea seems simple. As pointed out in class though, convincing an entire culture to change its way seems nearly impossible, hence why capitalism has been allowed to function at the extreme rate it does today.
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