Money is power. Or so the saying goes. The problem is, we have lost sight of the fact there are numerous other ways to gain and hold power. There is the power of the ballot box. There is the power of religion, of organization and the power of ideas. All of these latter powers have one great difference with the "power" of money. That is that each one is personal to the person or organization utilizing the power. Money is completely and utterly fungible. It can be used to finance water treatment systems for refugees or to buy cocaine.
True enough, horrible things have been done in the name of religion. Union organizations have created problems for the very workers they were to protect. And ideas can be utterly wrong. However,the purpose of religion, organization and ideas is universally positive. Not in the sense that positive is right, legal and moral. But positive in the sense that religion, organization and ideas are meant to promote some general idea. Money, on the other hand, is completely lacking in any ambition. It is only something to be used or not.
I previously discussed the fallibility of collecting billions of "tools" instead of actually using the tool. Now I would like to consider the fallibility of money as power. The thing is, money itself is nothing more than a measurement. It is an imperfect approximation of value. True power lies in the importance that the citizens give to money. If the people of the world give value, then money has the value it is given. Consider, if all the people of the world simply decided not to accept the value of money, then it would be worthless.
Now, we all know that is unlikely. Getting 20 people to accept the value of money as worthless would be quite a feat. But, consider the concept that a large group of people exercising their power of religion, organization and ideas could use money to their advantage. For instance, during the depression and throughout World War II, citizen consumers used the power of not purchasing from some businesses to force those businesses to hold prices and to hire African Americans. Essentially, they used their "money" to support their organizations and ideas. To be clear, religious organizations played a key role in many of these activities, as they did in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
For reasons I cannot currently explain or understand, we have lost this sense. It seems that Americans are totally different in most aspect except one. Americans value individuality and the concept of the free market so much they are willing to give up the greatest powers they have to organizations that neither share their values, nor have any morals or ethics.
It is time Americans began to use their power again. Climate change is an opportunity. Stop mindlessly using fossil fuels. If we all just quite driving for one day....but that is the subject of a different story. However, there are many other opportunities to make a statement using money. Refuse to invest in fossil fuels. Switch electric suppliers to a "clean energy" alternative. Use public transportation. Do not purchase things wrapped in huge amounts of needless plastic and request the stores you shop in to change suppliers. No one is suggesting we freeze. But recognizing when we are using fossil fuels and when we do not is a huge step. Saving those fossil fuels is even bigger.
Another opportunity is reforming the political finance system. Find out who the big donors are. Stop using their products and divest our 401(k)s of their stocks. Even if it these actions are simply done for a short while or by a select group, the message will be given and received. A recent story told of EQT shareholders who questioned whether their donations to political campaigns really raised the company's bottom line and increased their dividends and value. These questions should be made obselete.
The key to both of these exercises of power is to make sure that there is a clear link up of the message to the action. There is power in organization. There is also power in decentralized organization and individual action. Using the tool of money in ways such as outlined above, each of us individually can contribute a little, or a lot, to an organization that never needs to meet, has no leaders and cannot therefore be attacked. In other words, we simply vote with our dollars.
This is the real power of money. Unfortunately, we have become all too accustomed to abdicating this power to the sexiest advertising campaign. I urge us to think and find ways to exercise our power to achieve the world we want, rather than simply investing in what we are offered. Add any ideas to this blog, meet each other in private messages and start something. We owe it to ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment