I’ve been thinking a lot about my life. Why is it the way that it is? Have I made these choices? Yes. Maybe. If I have in fact made my life as it is today, it hasn’t been without influence, both subconscious and apparent. Just like millions of other Americans, mine is a life of possession. I seek out things: to purchase them, to use them, to like them, to need them, to devour them… to possess them… to own them.
But in thinking about my life, I’ve been questioning myself, and questioning those influences that have wrought a life of possession upon me and my wife. And I have come to what I perceive as a radical thesis: Ownership, as we know it, is an illusion.
Yup. I’m becoming persuaded that ownership is an illusion. Obviously, this would have radically far-reaching consequences, and will take some time to unpack. I’ve got a few aims as I go about doing this, and I’m afraid it’s too late at night to anything other than set some goals for supporting my radical little idea:
1. Consider the history of money and economy (not robustly; probably just cracking the surface)
2. Revisit and discuss John Locke’s theories about personal property (gonna dust off some old philosophy readers for that! Thanks Copy Central!)
3. Consider other ancient, medieval, modern (or post- if you’re inclined) and contemporary views on property, possessions and ownership.
4. Weigh the pros and cons of a world with ownership.
5. Weigh the pros and cons of a world without ownership.
6. Offer an alternative theory to ownership: stewardship.
Here, I’ll start with a (1), just for some late-night kicks. God help me.
An (Admittedly Under-Researched) Common Sense History of Money
Long, long ago, humans were hungry, and thought shiny things were pretty. (Isn’t it funny how some things never change?)
At some point, some humans perceived lack of food, some a lack of shiny things; or some humans felt desire for food, some a desire for shiny things. This led to a transaction: shiny things for food. Because food tasted good and helped humans do pull-ups, and because shiny things were awesome-looking and beautiful to the human eye, humans assigned value to the food and the shiny things. You just have to appropriately match the value of both, and you get what you pay for. This marks the inception of an entirely human, entirely socially assigned convention: money, or economics.
However, soon after the development of using shiny things to get food (and probably other stuff like sabertooth tiger furs and mammoth tusks), human pockets were getting weighed down. Literally. So humans made up lighter paper money to represent the actual shiny stuff. (In an ideal world… ha…) you have to have real shiny stuff to back up the paper stuff, since the paper stuff doesn’t have any real value.
And not long after that, humans’ wallets were getting way to overcrowded with paper bills and I.O.U.s, which led to humans assigning numerals to represent the paper, which represented the shiny things, which represented, again, either human need or desire.
The point? Money is just a way to represent something else: your time and your skill and your life. I agree, time may not be money (in any case, it shouldn’t be!); but money sure can be time. That’s how my company makes money: my time spent on the work for clients.
Money, at it’s roots, is an illusion – something humans created out of lack, need and desire.
What does this mean? Well, lots of things. And so, this brave (if ridiculous) examination begins.
I pray that it leads me and my wife closer to the God of Creation and further from the god of money.
More to come on money and economy and possessions and owning things and stewarding things and responsibility; and maybe even a broad, sweeping abstract to further organize these crazy thoughts.
