Money causes strife amongst kinsmen
Published: Wed, 07/08/15
The first line of the first rune poem, for Fe, says. “Money/wealth causes strife amongst kinsmen.” Well it sure is causing problems for the so called family of nations in the European Economic community. It seems that there has been a huge desire to create a ‘family’ of countries all using the same currency called the Euro. Anyone was welcome to join the club, almost regardless of their actual financial solvency and competence. Now here we are 14 years later with a major family squabble because one particular member, yes Greece, has borrowed a lot of money from the richer members of the family, mainly Germany, and cannot realistically service, let alone pay back, debts to other members of the family. So the dilemma is: How much can Greece be let off the hook for its irresponsible behaviour, verses the humiliation for the family that it can’t actually keep together.
I am not an economist or any kind of expert in international financial matters. However, I am old enough to remember some recent European history. In particular Germany’s experiment in a common currency between mismatched societies. When Germany reunified in 1990 the East German Mark was abolished almost immediately and exchanged one for one for Deutsche Marks. This was quite a windfall for any East Germans who had some savings. Subsequently East Germany has taken a long time to catch up with the West and in many ways still has not done so. Over a period of 20 years German reunification seems to have cost around 2 Trillion Euros or an average of 100 billion Euros a year. That is an internal matter for Germany, however, when it came to bringing a poor nation like Greece into a monetary union with Germany and other much richer countries the Germans cannot claim that they did not know how difficult it was going to be for both sides.
Of course the difference is that East Germany ceased to exist as a country in its own right. Sovereignty of any kind was exchanged for total unity into what was effectively West Germany. So if Greece had been prepared to be completely absorbed into Germany would the Euro project work? Firstly that wasn’t the deal, Greece wasn’t told it was giving up its independence, just having access to a common currency. Secondly, the experience of reunification suggests that absorbing a poor country and bringing it up to the standard of the rich dominant country is a slow, expensive and difficult process.
So how is the Greek Euro crisis actually going to play out? I have no idea and you can find plenty of speculation on line and in the newspapers if you have nothing better to do.
Much more important is to ask ourselves some questions about money and what it is. Prior to the industrial revolution land and access to natural resources was what mattered. So long as you had access to land with fresh water, timber and fertile ground then you could pretty much provide for yourself. Money was useful in the sense that there have always been some things that you can’t make yourself. If you work hard there will always be some surplus that you can trade for money to spend. But that would be a relatively small proportion of one’s overall economy, the effort one made would go into digging the ground and growing crops, cutting wood etc to make fire and build and maintain your house. If you keep sheep then you have the means to make your own woollen clothes, even if you pay someone else to spin and weave for you.
I am not trying to idealise the pre industrial life, it could be pretty hard and of course people sometimes starved if crops failed for some reason. However, now most people are totally dependent upon money to survive day to day. Even people who live in rural areas are totally dependent upon earning money (or receiving benefits) for food, energy, transport while all around them there may well be running water, standing and fallen timber and acres of fertile land. In urban areas even the reminders of other ways of surviving are absent.
Modern society has become dependent upon money. This is quite different from how it used to be when money was a useful means of exchange but not necessarily required for initial production. Do you know what money is? Where does it come from? Who creates it? Who takes it away again? Basically money is debt. In the modern world money come into existence when someone is given a loan, otherwise it simply does not exist. Paper money and coins do circulate, but, in the USA for example, there is only a few hundred dollars available per person as cash at any one time. The vast majority of so called money is nothing but credits and debits on computer discs. So how can there be a financial crisis? How can there be poverty if money is effectively created out of nothing? How can there be a shortage of something that does not exist anyway?
It is time we started learning about money, thinking about what we actually mean by the concept of money and started developing an approach to wealth that actually liberates human potential rather than seeming to crush it. I don’t have the answer but I am willing to ask the questions.
The runes are an education system, designed to make us think, the very first rune poem begins with a very relevant question for us today.
Ivar Hafskjold is arriving tomorrow and from Friday morning we will be having an intense three days of exploring how Stav can educate us in the modern world. Not re-enactment or historic fighting, more applying timeless wisdom to our lives in today’s every more perplexing world.
I will be recording as much material as possible and tomorrow is the last chance to pre order the DVD for £30 before the camp. See http://www.stavcamp.org for ordering.
regards
Graham