Nothing is “free” just because it doesn’t cost money. Money is, essentially, a representation of our time and effort, and making a living out in nature takes a lot of time and effort.
I didn’t read it as anti-money, I read it as pro-nature, from an indigenous man who owes his entire existence to his people’s relationship with and stewardship of nature.
I don’t know much about his culture other than that. I do know that there are cultures that operate without formal currency. One example is a gift economy. These systems are argued to foster closer relationships and a stronger community than a monetary economy.
I don’t know how they could scale up to millions of people though, since they seem to depend heavily on personal relationships and reputation to punish cheating and free-riding. If you’re further arguing that we shouldn’t have societies of millions of people and instead we should live in villages with large extended families and kinship networks, well now you have my attention!
I read it as Christian based anti-capitalist messaging that highlighted the Garden of Eden exists, it’s Earth, and the people tearing down the world for greed are the snakes who will ruin this Garden forever.
The quote specificately says money. Money is a form of measuring exchange value.
You’re talking about “use value” which is not what OP is talking about. No one is talking about ptopia, where figs and wine bust spontaneously fall into our mouths. Stop strawmanning.
Nothing is “free” just because it doesn’t cost money. Money is, essentially, a representation of our time and effort, and making a living out in nature takes a lot of time and effort.
No, that is literally a definition of free - not costing or having to be paid for.
The whole world doesn’t resolve around money, you can do work for free without exchanging currency. That is not mutually exclusive.
Bud, you’re the one here defining things solely around the involvement of money. I’m saying personal worth exists beyond that.
It’s literally what the image is bloody talking about. The image is not anti-work, it’s anti-money.
I didn’t read it as anti-money, I read it as pro-nature, from an indigenous man who owes his entire existence to his people’s relationship with and stewardship of nature.
I don’t know much about his culture other than that. I do know that there are cultures that operate without formal currency. One example is a gift economy. These systems are argued to foster closer relationships and a stronger community than a monetary economy.
I don’t know how they could scale up to millions of people though, since they seem to depend heavily on personal relationships and reputation to punish cheating and free-riding. If you’re further arguing that we shouldn’t have societies of millions of people and instead we should live in villages with large extended families and kinship networks, well now you have my attention!
It’s a Rorschach test showing us what we want.
I read it as Christian based anti-capitalist messaging that highlighted the Garden of Eden exists, it’s Earth, and the people tearing down the world for greed are the snakes who will ruin this Garden forever.
Time and effort are costs.
You use divergent definitions of “cost”.
The quote specificately says money. Money is a form of measuring exchange value.
You’re talking about “use value” which is not what OP is talking about. No one is talking about ptopia, where figs and wine bust spontaneously fall into our mouths. Stop strawmanning.
You can read up on the distinction here.
If money represented time and effort, we wouldn’t have billionaires and homeless people.
Somehow billionaires barely do anything and have all the money and all the time.
Money was supposed to be a representation of value, but it hasn’t been that for centuries either.
Well said. Although I tend to say: money was originally a representation of out time and effort.