Do you ever get a weird feeling when you reflect that money isn't actually 'real'?

[iloveeverykindofcat]

Okay, I know its 'real' in the sense of how it functions, but do you ever reflect how strange it is that we do all this work, make all these exchanges, do all this saving of something that doesn't actually exist? People I've mentioned this to IRL don't seem to share this feeling that its actually a very strange system - maybe I'm not explaining myself very well. But the money in my bank account, for example. Its just a number. I go to work in order to make the number go up, and almost everything else I do makes it go down. If someone went into the system and added a few zeros to it, my life would change beyond recognition...yet it doesn't actually exist? What is it?

And then there are people whose jobs it is to just play with those numbers: investing and manipulating and fund managing. It’s so stupid.

A five pound note is just plastic. A fifty pence coin is just metal. You might be able to touch it but it’s still just a concept, not a myth though as a pp describes it.

You’re 100% correct but I guess the reason it's considered valuable is that it’s creates order and structure to the complicated system we live in. How else would you organise billions of people? If we didn’t have a few shared understandings (e.g money, law)

No there isn’t. Not to the amount that exists as zeros on a screen.

I went into about 5 different shops on Saturday which all had signs up saying they were cashless. I wasn’t paying in cash anyway but it did make me wonder about people who do still use cash as their primary method of paying for things.

Anyway op, this is all a bit deep for a Monday morning, I’d never thought about this before!

I completely agree. It baffles me if I think about it for too long. I feel the same about the internet. How does it even work?! It's like magic!

Yes I think the same as you OP. Money is just energy at the end of the day.

That mental shift from thinking of money as real to just energy, or a measure of confidence, is quite a profound one I think.

It is a ‘myth’ in the sense it’s value is a shared illusion/belief.

@Theeaglesoared Measure of confidence is a good way to put it. Its not quite the same as a million pounds on a desert island, but my dad grew up in a wealthy family in a country where supply chains were frequently interrupted by war, coups and sanctions. They were frequently in the position of having plenty of money and being unable to buy things with it.

Somebody once said to me ‘Money is important. Try living without it. But imagine if it was announced the world was ending tomorrow. How important is it then?’

That was the first time I started to reflect like you did, OP. Until then I just accepted it was a key element of a functioning society and didn’t think about it much. And most of the time, I still do.

Notionally there isn’t really any difference between electronic money, cash or gold. They are all worthless in themselves (even gold as a pp says has little use) they are symbols that as a society we accept have value and can be swapped for actual tangible items. We do this because it’s a lot more convenient and efficient than barter.

However when you get something like a run on a bank (Northern Rock) or hyperinflation, that’s when the whole system risks crashing down as people no longer believe their electronic money or banknotes will be worth anything. It’s quite a fragile belief system really even though it underpins everything. This is why the banks had to be propped up in 2008.

House prices are the same. A value of a certain house in a certain area is only a shared belief too, really. And that sometimes can all come crashing down too.

Yes I often think about this. I was actually trying to find a simple way to explain it to my 7yr old last week as my physical bank has closed down and he wanted to know where my money was now. He’s not one for simple answers though so it all got quite complicated

I’ve always thought this! When I was a student I got a £20 fine for going I think 11p overdrawn for one day. I went in to complain and the bank guy said “but they direct debit went out of your account and you didn’t have the money so we had to pay it for you”. No you didn’t! They’re just numbers on a screen! And even if you did £20 seems a bit steep!

It’s one of many constructs that we humans collectively accept. Like the stock market. Like country boundaries. These things don’t actually exist in the way rocks do we just will them into existence.

I’m not sure it does. But also good is just a metal like lead. We ascribe value to it. The Aztecs had so much of it they couldn’t understand why the conquistadors were so bothered about it!

I don't feel like this (although yes about house prices), but I do feel a deep sense of injustice at how money represents both a means of securing essentials AND a way of "fairly" (questionable) dividing luxuries.

Because of it being both at once it leads to some really bizarre and I'd argue unhelpful/downright cruel beliefs and practices.

Like, if you think it's for luxuries then it makes sense for it to be an incentive, but if someone is recieving/losing money as an incentive and that's affecting their access to necessities then that seems really wrong. I'm probably not explaining this well but I get thoughts about this all the time.

Bring back the gold standard and turn the printers off.

I feel the same about the internet. How does it even work?! It's like magic!

Compared to currencies/banking, the internet is simple. It's just a method of connecting computers together to they can share information. Your PC/tablet/mobile is a computer, and you can use the internet to get information from another computer, such as the ones that hold the content of Mumsnet.

Well, this is hardly news, is it? I mean, money is a powerful shared myth like religion, morals, laws, languages, cultural codes etc.

It's hardly news but it's implications are rarely thought about

It stems I think from a "he did an hours work for me so he can have a hours worth of turnips from you "

and when you think of all the times we are told this or that can't happen because the money isn't there

Or inflation - an hours work was worth 2 turnips but now it's only 1

The same goes for governments etc. For example, yesterday a historic document was signed by the UN to protect the Worlds oceans (yippee). But the U N are just a group appointed by people years ago to oversee international situations. In theory, the individual person doesn’t have to comply with this if they decide the UN aren’t in charge.(or something like that according to a conspiracy friend).

I totally get this

In another note I worked in a bank many years ago when in the mid 90's bank when there was more cash and we had heaps but I instantly switched into it being just paper at work as in not thinking of if it as actual money, it made it easier to handle

I agree it's odd if you put your mind to it. I did A level economic years ago and learned that (at the time) the banks only had to hold I think it was 12% of deposits. The theory was that this is all that would ever be withdrawn. Unless there was a run on the banks of course.

Companies are another odd one. They are a legal fiction.

I recommend a book called The Moneyless Man.

It's about a guy who decided to live without money for a year, and to just barter, forage and grow his own, plus hitchhiking etc.

I by no means agree with all of it (he glosses over some of the implications of how his free caravan would have been built, plus he almost completely ignores the health aspect, especially for women), but it has some really interesting ideas.

Especially about giving and sharing for free, because what goes around comes around. MN is anti giving the smell of your farts for free, and I can see why, in a world where everything costs something and time is money. I get that women aren't paid as much for their labour.

But it does strike me that we should be doing less monetization of labour and favours, not more.

Yes! I feel similarly about time. Like, it's now Monday morning. But somewhere back in history, if whoever was in charge of naming the days had procrastinated a bit, today might have been a Sunday instead.