Day 180: The Word 'Capitalism' in 'Equal Money Capitalism'

The Problem

If we want to correct the current capitalistic system, we have to correct the very starting point as what drives capitalism at the moment. And to do this, we look at the meaning of the word 'Capitalism' and what the origin is of the word in terms of how it is currently defined - as this will reveal the essence of the problem from which all the inadequate consequences of the current economic system as 'capitalism' flow. Once we see the origin of the word and how, from this origin, the entirety of the capitalistic system was created, we are able to REDEFINE the word 'Capitalism' in a way that it represents an economic system that produces the best results for everyone. So, understand that the word 'Capitalism' in itself is not the problem - it's just a word - a string of letters placed together to form a sound. The problem is the meaning we have given to the word and how we currently live out this word in our every day lives, without even being aware of it.

So - let's shed some light on the origin of the word 'Capitalism':

"The lexical roots of the word capital reveal roots in the trade and ownership of animals. The Latin root of the word capital is 'capitalis', from the proto-Indo-European 'kaput', which means "head", this being how wealth was measured. The more heads of cattle, the better."

Source: http://circleof13.blogspot.com/2009/04/etymology-of-capitalism.html

From this etymological explanation of the word, it is clear that the more 'heads' of cattle you owned, the more value you had. And, if we have a look at capitalism today: it still works according to the same principle: the more you own, the more you are, the more value you have, the more influence you have, the better a life you live.

What does this reveal about the word 'Capitalism' as how it is currently lived?

It shows how we have misplaced our sense of self-value through defining how valuable we are in something 'outside' of ourselves, more specifically: in the ownership of resources - where resources can mean animals, laborers, equipment, land, and 'stuff' in general. We've come to believe that our value is dependent on how much we have - because that is how 'the world', or rather, the economic system, has treated us: if you don't have anything, then you're not considered, you're not a part of the economy, you're not supported. And, obviously, if you're not considered, included or supported, it means you're not valued. If everyone were valued by the current economic system, then the system would consider, support and include everyone - but this is not the case.

The Solution

The solution to the problem can be found within the very same origin of the word 'Capitalism' - specifically, within the root of the word referring to a 'head'. Though, instead of looking at how many heads someone owns 'outside' of themselves, as in how many heads of cattle, for instance - let's look at how many heads a person really truly owns - and the only head a person every truly owns is one's own head. It makes no sense to claim that one can 'own' a part of nature or the Earth - as physical resources - outside of oneself. Why? Because the Earth and nature were here long before us and they will remain here after we are gone - so how can we say that any of it is 'ours' - it's not ours.

Each one owns one head and one head is all we require - and with each one owning one head, each one has equal value. A person's value should not be defined by anything outside of the person. The fact that a person comes into being, that a baby is born - should be enough to recognize that this person, this being, has value - simply because it is a part of Life.

Therefore, Capitalism can be defined as:

An economic system that recognizes each one's inherent self-value as being a part of Life, that recognizes this value of each being to be equal - and that strives to consider and support each one's value, because in supporting each one's value as a part of Life, we support Life as a whole - this including humans, animals, and nature.

The Rewards

Redefining the word 'Capitalism' in this way will not only have rewards on an economic level, because we are in fact re-aligning our entire value-system from ownership to Life. What rewards will this bring about?

We will no longer twist and shape ourselves in an attempt to try and get recognition and validation from others, because we will simply recognize and validate ourselves as Life. This means we will save ourselves so much worrying and sorrow over what other people think about us and instead, we'll have the space, energy and confidence to really express ourselves in terms of our particular capital.

Each one has equal value, but that does not mean that each one has the same capital. Capital is that which is particular to your expression and capabilities with which you are able to contribute to Life - in terms of making Life richer and better for everyone. We know each one's capital is not the same - some are more artistic, while others have a passion for engineering. This doesn't mean that an artist is worth less or more than an engineer - it simply means that those beings have a different type of capital - but both artists and engineers contribute to making Life on Earth richer and better.

So, Equal Money Capitalism will be an economic system that capitalizes on each one's particular capital - using the 1 + 1 + 1 equation to make Life on Earth the best it can be. This means that no-one's capital will be wasted, downplayed or ignored. Everyone will be able to engage and be a part of making this world a world of value. It means that one can be proud of oneself and proud of one's job - because your job becomes an expression of who you are - and not just a means to survive.

Within Equal Money Capitalism, each one will be valued and thus, supported, which means no more worrying about your quality of Life or the need to survive, because this will be guaranteed. It means no more worrying about your children's life and their future - because this will be guaranteed. It means there will be no more slaves doing another's hard or dirty jobs, because each one will value themselves and no-one will be willing to subject themselves to the will of another in order to get by.

And so, as you can see - redefining the word Capitalism will make it possible to create a Capitalistic system that will in fact change the face of the Earth and will change Life on Earth in about every way. The rewards will be all that you had always wanted, but were never able to achieve in the current economic system.

Related articles

• Day 175: The Economic Problem and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 162: EQUAL MONEY CAPITALISM - The Way Forward
• Day 259: Give Happiness, Get Happiness
• Day 171: Life-Force and Expression in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 174: Loyalty to Life in Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 165: Equal Profit Share and Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 173: Supply, Demand, Business and Scarcity in Equal Money Capitalism
• The Future of Integrity with Equal Money Capitalism
• Day 179: Resource-ism, not racism, lies behind SA's race talk
• Day 163: Equal Money Capitalism - Redefining Profit

Day 75: The Demand for Money - Part 1

Within the previous blogs, we've looked at the Supply side of Money [Day 71: The Money Supply - Part 1, Day 72: The Money Supply - Part 2]. Within this blog we'll be looking at the demand side of things.

At any point in time, people can hold their wealth in various different forms, such as 'real assets' with include things such as property, "valuable items" such as paintings, rare carpets, antiques, etc. and 'financial assets'. Within financial assets we can further distinguish between money and bonds.

Bonds are a financial tool where the debtor promises to regularly repay the owner interest and will pay back the capital amount at a certain date. Governments for instance work with bonds to finance some of its expenditure.

Within this context, the demand for money is the amount that the different members in the economy plan to hold in the form of money balances. Remember that the demand for money is not the same as the ‘want’ for money. So within the context of the ‘demand for money’ – we are only looking at those members of the economy who have an income / possess wealth. You can read up on the concept of Demand within Day 49, 50and 51.

When looking at the demand of money we are looking at a few factors:

·         Money for the purpose of transactions

·         Money for the purpose of precaution

·         Money within speculation

These three points refer to functions money can have. Money is a universal tool for transactions, you need money readily available for you to do your groceries, for companies to pay their workers, etc. People also save their money for unseen events and expenditures.

When looking at the speculation point within money, we are basically looking at the trade-off between holding wealth as money, which is a flexible form as it can be exchanged at any time for something else– and holding bonds – which are more inflexible, but on which one can gain interest. The demand for money is thus directly related to the function it performs, and what function the wealth owner prefers best.

So depending and the person, and their circumstance – they will either prefer to hold some/most of their wealth as cash and demand deposits – or as bonds on which they can gain interest.
Within this, the particular interest rate which is being applied plays a role. A person might want to keep their wealth in the form of cash / demand deposits because he/she values the liquidity of money in this form more than bonds at an ‘x’ interest rate – but if the interest rate suddenly goes up, the person might change their mind as they can see that they could be making more money through having bonds, and so will forego the liquidity of cash for bonds (until the interest rate drops again). Within the concept of ‘supply and demand’ – we saw that prices are the main determinants which direct supply and demand for goods and services. Within this context, we can view the ‘interest rate’ as a price being put on loanable funds. And so, as the price goes up (high interest rate being paid out) – the more people will be willing to move some of their wealth in in the form cash/demand deposits – to holding it in the form of bonds.

(There are various interest rates, such as the repo rate, interbank lending rate, prime rate of banks, rates on deposits, mortgage rates, government stock rates,… and so the list goes on. At this point you do not require to know what all these different interest rates do/mean – all you need to know is that there are different ones. And that although there are different ones, they will follow the same pattern in their movement (up or down). So when we speak of ‘the interest rate’, it should be seen as a ‘representative’ rate for all the individual rates which are in play.)

When I first heard about 'the demand for money' -- I immediately went within myself 'Oh cool, now we are going to learn how the money supply has to adapt to the amount of people and levels of poverty -- because if there's more people / a lot of poverty obviously a lot of money is demanded because these people require money so they can access basic resource in order to sustain themselves'. So I was in for quite a disappointment when I learned that the 'demand for money' has got nothing to do with people and them being able to take care of themselves. It only cares about those who have money and how they act within their self interest in terms of whether they want to be flexible with their money or want to make money out of money. No consideration whatsoever for real issues -- a very big disappointment indeed.

Related articles

• Day 71: The Money Supply - Part 1
• Day 50: Resource Distribution - Part 2
• Day 67: The Functions of Money
• Day 88: Advanced Economics
• Day 103: Passion for Economics
• Day 128: Economic Slavery and True Activism

Day 67: The Functions of Money

Money as a Medium of Exchange

In a barter economy, one can only trade goods for other goods. If you want/require something like for instances clothes, and you only have wheat yourself which you cultivate, you need to find someone who can supply you with clothes and at the same time demands wheat.
For a trade to take place, a double coincidence of wants needs to be in place. Trading goods for goods can be limiting as one might have to first trade wheat with someone who has carrots, trade the carrots with someone else for spinach, and then go back to the person with the clothes because spinach is something he/she's willing to trade for clothes.

This type of inefficiency led people in even early primitive communities to come up with some form of money (for instance obsidian) to facilitate the exchange of goods. The advantage of a monetary economy is that the requirement of the double coincidence of wants falls away. As long as the wheat farmer can find someone who wants to buy his wheat, he can buy clothes with the money received for the wheat.
Money then serves as an intermediary to facilitate the process of exchange, making it more efficient.

Money from this perspective is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods or services or that is accepted in settlement of debt.

What makes money "special" is that it is accepted as payment because people believe that it will be accepted as payment by other people. In England in the 12th century for instance, they came up with 'tally sticks' as a medium of exchange, which was basically a piece /stick of wood with notches in it. The use and exchange of money is thus completely dependent on its acceptance and belief of people as it being 'money' and it being 'valid'/'valuable' -- and so is completely based upon agreement.

Money does not have to be 'backed up' by anything such as gold or silver -- as again gold and silver are simply materials which we've decided to give value -- but that doesn't make them valuable in fact. Backing up money with 'gold' or 'silver' is then simply 'backing up money with another form of money' and does not make the money more 'real' / 'valuable' / 'better'.

Money as a Unit of Account

A unit of account is an agreed measure for expressing the prices of goods and services. In a money economy the prices of goods and services are expressed in monetary terms and so money also functions as a unit of account. The accounting function of money is secondary to that of the function as a medium of exchange.

Also note that money can lose its usefulness as a unit of account when going through a period of inflation, as when prices increase but your income/savings stay the same = you get less for the same amount of money.

Money as a Store of Value

Money also functions as a store of value. The most common form of holding wealth is money, as it is something which you can easily exchange for something else at any point in time.

There are other forms of storing value, such as property, stocks, shares etc. Of all the different forms of stores of value, money is the most 'liquid' one (since its easily exchangeable).

Holding / storing wealth in the form of money over long periods overtime also has very definitive disadvantages. Overtime, inflation progresses and your money will slowly but surely lose some of its value overtime (and will diminish a lot in periods of hyperinflation). In short, during inflation your money does not retain its value.
 n the long run, one is better off storing one's wealth in the form of property, Art, precious metals, etc. As prices increases, the prices of your Art pieces will also increase, and so will retain its value better than money in its simple form.

Money's function as a store of value also implies that it can be used as a standard of deferred payment. This practically means that money also works as the measure of value for future payments.

Day 34: Occupying the Middle-Class

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the current world economic system does not work for everyone

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that it is impossible for everyone to ‘make it’ and ‘get rich’ within this world – as the current world economic system is a pyramid scheme which requires a large strong foundation to maintain the top – and thus those who ‘make it’ will always only be a few while those who ‘don’t make it’ will always be the majority

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the current economic system of profit does not work on the basis of “creativity” – where the economic system stimulates people to be ‘more creative’ to bring about ‘more effective’ goods and services, and where profit is the reward for this endeavour – but where the current economic system is based on the one being or group, exploiting another being or group – where they manipulate the game to simple take the profits they want

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the middle-class is kept passive and complacent through the hope and dream of one day being rich and successful themselves

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the belief that anyone can make it as long as you work hard enough – is simply not true – as it is simple mathematics that if you want more and take more – that this ‘more’ has to come from somewhere

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the middle-class is being contained through media manipulation – where the media will report success stories of people who had nothing and worked their way up to the top – ending up with having everything

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the stories and the people who are being reported to have made it from nothing to everything – are in fact exceptions to the rule – as the media will only report on those things which are highly unusual as they as sensational and thus ‘newsworthy’ as these stories will generate revenue for the particular media company – instead of the media reporting every day occurrences and events such as the 21  000 children dying everyday and within that I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the media is trying to portray these events/stories as if they are the norm – where people fall for the trap that they too can be come as wealthy – just keep working!

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the chance of being struck by lightning within one's lifetime is higher than the chance of living the ‘rags-to-riches’ story

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that if a person in a developed country such as the US has got 1 in 200 000 000 chances of becoming rich – then the chances for anyone lesser developed countries is even worse off – as the amount of money one already has plays a major role in increasing your “chances”

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the current world economic system is not a system which provides for all equally within the consideration of life – but is a giant casino / lottery game where one in a million might hit the jackpot – yet everyone keeps playing

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise how the middle-class and everyone else hoping to be rich will oppose higher tax rates on the wealthy as they think/believe that they too will be wealthy one day – instead of seeing and realising that it’s not going to happen and that this belief is the only thing which is keeping the outrageously rich in place

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that 69% of the people who can be qualified as rich within the world – are rich because they inherited their wealth

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that 26,8% of the people who can be qualified as rich within this world – are rich because of criminal activities and "unethical behaviour"

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that 4,2% of the people who can be qualified as rich within this world – are rich because they married into money

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the above three factors make up the foundation of over 99% of the rich people’s wealth

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that one's chances to becoming wealthy are linked to the birth lottery and poverty

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that higher education as college / university within this world works just like a gamble / casino – as you have more chance of losing money than gaining money – where the majority end up being burdened by student loan debt which influences the rest of their lives vs a few making it to the top and thus getting “something” out of their education while most likely their education had nothing to do with why they got rich as the numbers above have shown


I commit myself to change this world from a world of extreme inequality to one of Equality as what is Best for All

I commit myself to expose how the current world economic system does not in fact support all equally – where a few individuals at the top of the pyramid benefit from the vast majority at the bottom of the pyramid where the bottom’s loss is the top’s gain

I commit myself to show that the current world economic system is unsustainable and thus irresponsible and that it is possible to have a different world economic system where everyone’s better off as the Equal Money System

I commit myself to expose how the hope for riches is the rope the middle-class and poor hang by, as it leaves them in a state of compliance in the hope and dream that they too might one day be rich, without seeing and realising that within the current world system and dynamics that this is highly improbable

I commit myself to expose how the current world economic system works as a casino where the birth lottery decides your fate as it decides how much money will be available for you and your future

I commit myself to show those who are willing to hear that we do not have to accept this abusive system and that we can establish a world economic system within this world which will make Life worth Living