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?

On a similar theme, I can't get over that (depending on the area) every time you walk down even a small single road, you are walking past a million pounds of property every 2-4 houses. The property on a typical road, with houses both sides, could be worth 14-20 million! Then I start trying to multiply it by every road in every village, town and city! It's beyond belief!

Currency is just far, far more convenient and easy than the previous system - bartering goods.

Without it you'd have to cart around shit loads of stuff to trade and hope your goods are actually wanted in exchange.

Without currency we'd never had advanced much beyond the stone age. We'd still be small pockets of hamlets growing our own veg, tending our own animals, and taking surplus to market to trade.

You couldn't progress beyond small scale subsistence farming.

And if you think that's the ideal lifestyle you've never had an allotment.

I feel the same when I start thinking about the Universe. My mind can’t cope 😂

how can something just stretch out forever but then again it must do as otherwise what’s on the other side of the wall?

@BMW6

”And if you think that's the ideal lifestyle you've never had an allotment.”

Sorry, that sentence made me smile. On a thread that’s talking about abstract /non-abstract concepts etc, you end with a comical sentence.

In theory, you can go to the Bank of England and cash it in for gold to that value

No you can't. They'll just give you another note.

Amen to this. Especially to the allotment barter parable.

This was mentioned on the radio about Christmas presents.

A caller gave their story of brother and sister who began giving each other cash or a voucher and decided to agree on a mutual amount and just write a note each

As the years went on they increased the amounts and this Christmas just gone they were either at the hundreds of thousands or a million

I've thought about this since I was a teenager (more than 25 years ago). I was always wondering if everyone decided they wanted to withdraw all their money on the same day how much would there be? What percentage of people could have actual cash? I assume its less now than then as cash becomes less widely used?
Not quite the same but I also find it odd when I see things priced with no currency symbol, such as on a menu. Could I have a pizza for 10 buttons for example as currency is not indicated!

The concept of money is precisely that - a concept

It’s built upon its origins of co-operation. In a tiny community they would help each other out and share, then probably as people settled in slightly larger community they would exchange assistance or barter, then move on to exchanging the promise of something later (perhaps in the same way as a futures market giving seeds or young livestock to be grown on the promise of sharing some back later on)

Expand the community wider or deal with strangers that you may not see again then the basic promise can be lost, so money becomes a token which can be traded upon with someone else at any time.
If you don’t have anything to trade then you can provide your labour in exchange for tokens which you can then trade for items
…. and that gives us money

It has happened a few times that people have tried to withdraw their cash savings from a bank.

It's called a run. The bank runs out of cash and has to close. October 1925? Thousands and thousands of people lost everything they thought safe. It became the Great Depression of the 1920's, led to the rise of Nazi Germany, General Strike (UK), Prohibition (USA).

It changed world history. That's the power of currencies, and the warning of "boom then bust".

Still better than bartering ten sacks of turnips for a goat. Or in a good turnip year, 50 sacks of turnips for a goat.

"Abstract and non abstract concepts " is just pretentious waffle.

Money is just a much more convenient way of bartering. An offer is made (these trousers for £10) and accepted or rejected by the consumer. Simple.

Or "this job for £20 per hour". Potential employees can accept or reject.

Nothing abstract about it.

Money is also more fair. You only have to know the value of an object in monetary terms to know if you are overpaying or not. If you have a barter system you get the Jack and the Beanstalk scenario of people not knowing how many beans a donkey is worth, or how many potatoes buys you a bottle of beer- and then being taken advantage of.

Quite. Life without a system of currency would be a nightmare.

All money is just an accepted and agreed upon IOU.

Money and capitalism or the alternatives are interesting. But if it wasn't money, we've been trading for years. I pick the apples from my tree, you want some, you grow potatoes, we exchange, trade. What else do you suggest?

@HereBeFuckery and don't forget, if a family member wasn't doing that care, it would be a paid job of someone else. So its both worth money and don't worth money. Of course there are plenty of things you can be that are also free. Like water. @RosaGallica put it well when she said that the monetary value of work feels increasingly uncoupled from any sense of reality.

*not worth money
*buy that are also free.

When are we getting an edit button?

No it's fiat money now. Basically no gold

Yes if everyone decided they wanted their entire bank balances in cash there wouldn't be enough to pay everyone there and then.

Quite , plus bartering is not v efficient. You need a doctor and you have eggs to exchange, but the doctor has enough eggs so he doesn’t want to trade. No doctor for you unless you can do another trade to get the doctor what he does want. But cash/ currency can be exchanged for anything.

Basically without currency you can’t move on from a subsistence society so arguments like “ well money would be worthless if civilisation ended” don’t really make sense because civilisation as we think of it is only possible because of money. Otherwise we’d all be spending our days scratching out a subsistence living on whatever land we have- completely non-viable in UK as far too densely populated and agricultural landholdings far too concentrated

Yes I've always had this thought, it's also like if you had a billion in your bank account but were abducted by Aliens it wouldn't help you at all because it's meaningless to them.

It evolved from bartering, swapping a pig for 6 chickens, then coins and notes backed by gold, now none of that it's just a system we all believe it. If we all tried to withdraw our "money" it simply isn't there it's make believe!

Sad really I spend 80 percent of my waking life trying to get it or worrying about it !

I get this all the time.

All the stress and the worry for something that doesn't really exist.

@iloveeverykindofcat exactly! I meant more that we value and praise people in paid employment over those choosing (for example) caring roles, which seems nuts to me!

It evolved from bartering

Probably, but I also think agriculture is important. As we moved from hunting/gathering the use of currency made 'wealth' both portable (so you could go to town and buy stuff) and also storable so you could save for leaner times.