Our businesses are run by businessmen, economies influenced by economists, and markets dictated by marketers; we should not be the least bit surprised when much of the machinations that drive our society are themselves driven by and for pure profit. We should not be surprised that when we let only some of the players determine the rules for the game, those players come out ahead. Yet somehow this is exactly how we seem to be, and so when we fight the corporate corruption or self-sustaining systems of wealth, we do so in their court with their rules, and we accomplish nothing but reinforcing their apparent power.
Yet these corporate constructs are just that—artifacts of our society that only hold power if we give them power. Money is a form of communication—granted, not in direct parallel with language, but it is a form of communication. And like words, the meaning of money is not inherent—there is no special law in the universe dictating that money has any inherent value, power, or meaning, just like there is no innate property of the letters or phonemes that make up a word like “ant” that give it meaning independent of our attributions of such. As such, money is at its best a tool to facilitate certain exchanges between people, and at its worst an illusion, too often used to manipulate and control.
Now, I am certainly not arguing against the idea of money or currency. Money is a necessary part of our society, at least for the foreseeable future, and it is a useful tool for our society. All I wish to do is remind us as a whole that money is only a tool or a symbol, and it has no real power. If we blame our failures on money itself, it would be like blaming our loss in chess on the pieces. Of course, neither can we expect the other players to simply let us win. I’ve expressed in previous entries that life is very much not a competition, unlike a game, and I explained why we should be motivated to choose cooperation over competition whenever possible, but we cannot expect everyone to simply accept this philosophy outright, especially when they are apparently quite successful in lieu of it.
Neither, though, am I saying we, just this once, compete against those who will not cooperate. We have no need to make those who currently control the game change things, nor should we ever be surprised when our fist-shaking and finger-pointing fail to inspire them to do so. Instead, we should simply change the rules ourselves. We need only essentially play a different game—one of our own design that uses money only as the tool it is and not as some all-powerful, all-motivating force of the universe.
We can instead let other factors motivate us. We can cooperate and still come out ahead, all the while happier and with better friendships. We can make our decisions not only as consumers but as producers or service providers not on simply costs and profits but on quality, creativity, and ingenuity.
Gandhi said "Be the change that you wish to see in the world," and as I illustrated in previous entries, changing the world really is as simple as being a better person and helping other become better people, and the same strategy applies to business, politics, society, and anywhere else we find that needs changed. I have seen that there are a lot of people out there who want to change the economic machine, but instead of occupying Wall Street, where we as literally as possible play in our opponent's court, we should simply move the game to our courts.
Moreover, the progression of our technology is facilitating a new shape for our economy. Kickstarter has made investing not about expected financial returns, but investing in things we feel deserving. The internet has moreover facilitated the existence of niche markets not fueled, designed, and dictated by corporations but by small businesses and individuals. So, in addition to my usual message of cooperation, here I encourage all of us to utilize these technological tools available to facilitate a better economic environment, but at the same time to not rely on them to fix things for us. It is still us who make the rules, and it is still us who play the game. It is still us who decide if we play co-op or versus. Most importantly, though, it is us who decide what game we play.
