The Period of Grace
First we lived in tribes where everyone shared everything. There was no ownership except that which belonged to the group. We hunted, we gathered, and we lived within and for nature. What we hunted and gathered, we shared and ate. Who we hunted and gathered with, we loved, and we would protect with our lives. Man and nature were one. This, some call, the period of grace—the time in which there were zero layers of alienation or abstraction between man, his labor, and his tribe.
Then came the fall.
The 1st Abstraction - The Fall
Agriculture put man and nature into conflict with one another. No longer did we migrate to wherever food existed, but rather we stayed put and forced food to grow and live where we chose it to live. We had farms and ranches, and if our farms and ranches did not produce what we needed, we would scorn nature. “Why have you not given me what I have worked so hard for?” one might ask. Here, the first layer of alienation between man and the fruits of his labor came to be. Reward no longer came immediately after labor but rather days, weeks, even months after our labor. People traded sheep or crops for goods and services. That is, people had to decide amongst each other whether another’s sheep was worth their sword or if their sword was worth another’s sheep. Prior to this, even, they had to decide that they could even own a sheep or a sword. Thus, with agriculture came property, and with property came the first thou shalts and thou shalt nots of civilization. But trade and ownership are only concepts—concepts based off the people’s belief that such exist. Hence came the representation of the worth of a man’s labor—or more so, the fruits of such labor. So with the first layer of alienation came too the first layer of abstraction on value and worth.
The 2nd Abstraction - The Coin
As agriculture produced more food than the farmers and ranchers could eat, people had to do other things with their time. The number of goods and services and types of labor increased. These non-farmers still needed food, however, and to get food they would need to trade something with the farmer. Yet with so many goods and services, trading became inefficient. People needed something universal by which they could alchemize the value of their labor into. Hence came the coin. A precious, shiny metal issued by a government that all people found some intrinsic value in. Now a sheep could be worth three coins and a sword worth two. A man could sell his sheep and buy a sword with a coin to spare. The problem remained: what can a man do with a coin? Nothing. Nothing but look at it until he could replace it with something that he could use. And so a step was added that came between your sheep and the sword. Turn the sheep into a coin, then you could turn your coin into a sword. The value of a commodity became represented within the coin. Such representation, no matter how shiny the coin, people still needed to believe in. A symbol of value but not value itself. Thus came the second layer of alienation and abstraction.
The 3rd Abstraction - Gold Wrapped in Paper
Many centuries passed with this working just fine. At the very least, coins were made from a finite resource, and that finite resource was taken from nature. With that said, money was still something based in the fruits of nature. Yet, as the number of different types of jobs and thus commodities and services increased near the beginning of the industrial revolution, civilization called for something more easily acquired and produced to represent wealth. Hence came the bank note, or most commonly known as cash.
These pieces of paper were, like coins, also issued by the government and represented the aforementioned pieces of metal. Thus, the value of a commodity became represented within the bank note whose own value is represented within the precious metal (such as gold). Let’s say a government agreed that one dollar bill was equivalent to one gold nugget. If someone had a hundred gold nuggets, they could trade those in to instead receive a hundred dollar bills. This bank note was essentially the alchemization of the value of the gold into the piece of paper. Yet, there’s an issue here: how is one to find any value in a piece of paper? Why, when I have two pieces of paper, one with a picture of Benjamin Franklin and another with a picture of George Washington, is the one with Franklin worth a hundred times more than the one with Washington?
The only physical difference between a one dollar bill and a hundred dollar bill are the words and images printed upon them. Both weigh the same, both have the same dimensions, both come from the same material, and both are colored and written upon with the same ink. Yet, one is worth far more than the other. Why on Earth would anyone believe these have value? Well, because everyone agrees they do. Because everyone believes they do. To reinforce these beliefs, governments will write words such as “In God we trust” and print symbols like the all-seeing eye. Faces of historical, god-like figures are placed on the front of these bills to reinforce their authority. Now, when I want to sell my sheep, I can sell it for a hundred dollar bills with each of these bills representing one gold nugget. I can then use my hundred dollar bills to buy a sword. In other words, I can turn my sheep into a hundred dollar bills, all of which representing gold nuggets that I have never and will never see. With these dollar bills, I can purchase whatever I want so long as its less than or equal to a hundred dollar bills.
Let’s face it, most people aren’t the ones selling the sheep; they work for the guy selling the sheep. Most people work for the sheep farmer and receive cash in exchange for their work. Yet, they never actually get the satisfaction of raising the sheep to good health and selling it—the owner of the sheep gets that satisfaction. Instead, the average person simply gets cash for their labor. That is, the work they do becomes represented within not even a sheep but pieces of paper. And these pieces of paper are, again, just representations of gold that they really will never even dream of seeing. Their work is reduced not even to livestock or metal, but to paper—paper that itself is only a placeholder for metal they’ll never see. This, my friends, is the third layer of alienation and abstraction.
The 4th Abstraction - Just Paper
Bank notes, unlike gold, can be printed. So if cash is backed by gold, then printing more of it would make all cash worth less. For instance, if I have one gold nugget and say that it is worth one dollar, and all I have in my imaginary cash system is that one dollar bill, then when I print a second dollar without adding any gold, the value of both dollars decreases. That is, before I printed a second dollar, $1 equaled one gold nugget, but now $2 equals one gold nugget. If a government keeps printing money, at what point does backing it with gold mean anything?
Enter the fiat currency. A fiat currency is money that is not backed by a physical commodity. Yet, if the value of cash is not attributed to the gold in which it is a representation of, then where does cash get its value from? Belief. Pure and utter belief. And so, Cash becomes something not backed by a physical commodity such as gold but rather something which gains its worth purely based off the people’s trust in the government and their currency. Money is now truly something that people must believe in for it to work. This system of currency came into prevalence in the US in the 20th century, with it officially coming into play in 1971 when Richard Nixon removed the ability for people to convert dollars to gold at a fixed value.
So today, one might work for a grocery store. At this grocery store, they earn a wage by scanning commodities that roll along a conveyor belt, and perhaps some of these commodities come from some sheep farmer who they will never meet, know, or even think about. In many ways, their only purpose is so that the commodity produced by the farmer can travel between the farm to the consumer, and the money of the consumer can travel between them and the farmer. When they earn their wage, which isn’t very much, they can use their dollar bills to buy whatever they can afford. So their labor, which is nothing more than transporting wealth and commodities between people, is alchemized into pieces of paper that are only worth something because we all believe they are worth something. Hence, we have the fourth layer of alienation and abstraction.
The 5th Abstraction - Pixels
Today, most people don’t carry cash. Cash takes up a lot of space, especially when your government likes printing a lot of it. Instead, they carry cards or phones which have digital cards on them. These cards, or more so the numbers on the cards, represent the location of cash which supposedly exists in a bank. One can check their bank app to see a number—a digital representation of paper, itself a symbol of gold which no longer exists. That is, when you work, you receive your wage in numbers on a screen. These numbers represent dollar bills. So, we went from hunting for food and eating it, to raising food then trading it for other commodities, to representing the value of the food we made with gold coins, to then representing the value of the gold coins in pieces of paper, to then representing the value of the pieces of paper within the belief that they have value, to finally representing belief itself within numbers on a screen.
Now, I work for a financial tech company. We analyze investment data for investment managers of insurance and wealth management companies. My job consists of ensuring the data of different assets aligns with the data from banks and those who trade such assets. That is, I make sure the numbers on my screen align with the numbers on the bank’s and the asset manager’s screen—that everyone agrees on several layers of fictional abstractions that no one can touch. Unlike the grocery store clerk, I am not even a vehicle for commodities to consumers; I’m merely a servant to symbols within symbols within symbols. In other words, my job is complete and utter bullshit: the fifth layer of alienation and abstraction. How much longer before we abandon even paper—and we are left with only numbers to believe in?
One might argue that the wealth I generate from my labor can give me meaning by providing for my family. Perhaps that was true in the 1950’s when one factory job could support a family. But we live in a much, much different era. Moreover, unlike the hunter who would gain his reward directly from his labor, the data reconciler does his meaningless, abstract labor, then receives cash in the bank. Yet, as a salary employee, it is as if I am simply receiving free money. My job and the money I receive are completely disconnected. Our brains were not designed to receive rewards that have nothing to do with our work. With that said, it is less that I am earning money, and more so that I am forced to work lest I will not receive my recurring salary.
And now I type these words to people I shall never see, hear, or know, for all I know of you are your profiles and the numbers of views—profiles and numbers which are representations of real people. Yet, so too I must ask: how much longer before we abandon even people—and all we are left with are only profiles and numbers to believe in?
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