There is no topic quite as nimble and obscure as money. Currency, conceptually, has been around for some millennia. It is used a symbol representing any given noun’s value. But there is no definitive way to assign value. A key component to the monetary system is the unconditional support and belief of the contributors that we so curiously, welcome. Capital has now become an abstraction used to maintain order where there would otherwise be anarchy.
It is the strong belief of many that humans are intrinsically selfish. The more we have, the better our chances for survival. Let us conceptualize ourselves as ancient humans before the advent of commerce. Here I sit, famished and scrawny next to a watering hole, with enough water to sustain me and only me. Suddenly, A dehydrated but pituitary gigantic individual emerges from the woods dragging both the carcass of a fully mature lion and a spear twice the size of me behind him, and he is thirsty. I, willingly opt to cede my water and leave peacefully so I don’t have to harm this nice massive fellow (I’m no coward, I am however realistic). Two days later I am dead, and the man-beast is lonely, his primitive mind wondering, why the hell he is incapable of friendship. If only there was only some way of contrasting my desires with his, he grunts to himself, muffled by a mouthful of lion meat and water. We both could have easily survived, but there was no way to facilitate an agreement. Our instincts automatically assign value to items in demand which could either sustain our lives, or make them more bearable. Although a helpful evolutionary tactic, these instincts can quickly become derogatory toward creating civilization.
A general rule of thumb about civilization is that it should be civilized, at least in some respects. Essentially, currency provides the foundations of civilization. It is a universal indicator allows us to break apart what we own, and facilitate trade in a civilized manner. The vehicle of transaction is meaningless, and could be anything. An NPR broadcast by Jacob Goldstein and David Kestembuam, reporters for the program, briefly describe an example of a quite inventive symbol. “But hundreds of years ago, explorers from Yap found limestone deposits on an island hundreds of miles away. And they carved this limestone into huge stone discs, which they brought back across the sea on their small bamboo boats.” The islanders of Yap used giant limestone as their currency, which to us would seem impractical, but if it’s stupid and it works, it isn’t stupid. This proves literally anything can be deemed money. The broad interpretation of currency is now an item with no specificity that represents a portion of what someone is in control of.
This system reflects the game of life quite well. Instead of working diligently for macro life necessities (as previously explained), we work for easily dividable symbols which represent portions of our claims to necessities. Now, if we require a necessity, we put in work. The work, is now also metaphorical however. Work for our ancestors involved much more laborious and survival oriented activities (The hunting of a prey, the searching for water, the building of shelter). Now instead we work indirectly to such things (goods and services for money).
We all now abide by this system of trade, as it has proven superior to the alternative. When agreements are facilitated there is no need for hostilities. The catch however, is that we cannot question the integrity of the system. Assigning value to such frivolous things as rocks, or pieces of cloth, or even imagination, is completely illogical. “The Lie That Saved Brazil” is another NPR broadcast showing belief in the system is mandatory. “Everyone stopped believing in their currency and of course, that had disastrous results..inflation….. But you also have to stabilize people faith in money… People had to be tricked into thinking money had value, when all signs told them that was absolutely not true. So Basha says, they wrote a plan for a new currency, one that was stable, dependable, trustworthy. The only catch was this currency would not be real.” Of course the government is revered for “tricking” its own people (which is slightly disconcerting). In reality however the people chose to accept this new currency, because it was a simplified alternative to the weak old system. The situation in Brazil was quite hectic as faith in money lingered. A simple change to the system reassured belief in the system, which in tern stabilized the nature of Brazil’s citizens.
So, It seems logical for illogical systems of trade to be conjured. Currency is effective because we avoid dissecting it, much like a good joke, or anything in the animal kingdom. Creating imaginary value and placing it on meaningless objects seemingly makes no sense. This system does, however, have its benefits. We need a way to gain what others have (symbolically), to sustain our lives, and make them bearable. Without a civilized means to gain what others have, society would crumble. The rapid Progress of our race would likely curb to a standstill.
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Be warned: this is a work in progress, Not quite done yet
Great to know, Drew. I haven’t read it, but I love that it comes with a warning label.
Now awaiting review, thank you
I see and I apologize. Since you didn’t use the word feedback, my search didn’t discover this.
Feedback provided, —DSH
Hey, Drew. Today’s finally the day I will get to your feedback for this assignment.
P1. I love your inventiveness, Drew, which illuminates when it flashes just right. Be sure to aim it correctly, at your object not your observer. For the photographer, the flash illuminates the subject; for the subject, it’s an annoyance that can temporarily blind us.
“Any given noun” is nice, but it distracted me for two sentences as I considered: harmony? Does he mean we determine a price for harmony? Mavis Gallant? Does she have a currency value? People probably are considered property in many transactions—professional sports, for example, and he did just say “assign value to anything”—but is that what he meant? Just so you know the effect of that one word.
Rhetorical questions have the same effect, on this reader at least. They are as dangerous in essays as wherever we’re in need of directions. “Say cheese” is reassuring. “Feel like saying cheese?” means either “I am waiting for you to get comfortable for this photo to occur” or “What’s taking you so long?” Similarly confusing: “Follow this road for three miles and take a, a what? a right? are you planning on traveling north?”
You don’t really answer the first rhetorical question, except to hint that valuation requires faith and “contributions” of some sort. You don’t really answer the second one either, except to hint that money, or currency, or symbolic valuation, or monetary systems, involve another abstraction, capital (which hasn’t always been an abstraction but “has become” one) that keeps the peace, preventing either war or wild price fluctuations.
So, keep flashing, Drew, but be careful to keep it out of my eyes.
P2. isn’t a race with an “intrinsic and selfish need for greed” just intrinsically greedy? or intrinsically selfish?
Please add cows or chips to this early going, Drew. Our chances for survival are no better because of our DVD collections. I agree with “necessitous for life,” but it would be a better strategy to build this argument from the watering hole, as you do. Saying baldly “the more we have” makes any modern reader think of frivolous stuff before you’ve made your survival pitch.
Contrarily? Hmm… What’s contrary here is that your malnourished group comes bearing a surfeit of food.
Who’s greedy here? You haven’t established that you might need food. You haven’t explained why they need to attack you for what you could all share. After all, they will share among themselves, right? What I mean is, your illustration needs work.
P3. Well . . . even with a shared currency, it’s unlikely your watering hole group would trade fei in this transaction, isn’t it? I mean it’s possible, but you’ve got me at that scene and want me to make the transition now from getting killed for water to trading useless rocks to exchange water for food. It’s asking a lot.
That sounds reasonable, but back to stone disks for a second. When I receive fei for my food, do I care that what I receive from you is “a representation of a portion of what you control”? or do I take those stones because they represent “the ability for me to buy water when I need it”?
P4. Yes, exactly: “portions of our claims to necessities.” It’s still a little clumsy that you divide our claims and our necessities into portions just because $1000 is divisible into “portions,” but let’s let that go for a moment.
The continuing problem, at least for me, is that I’m doing what you want me to do, according to your introduction. I’m thinking about greed and necessities. Am I greedy to want food and water? Or am I greedy when I acquire and hoard more than I need, or stuff nobody “needs”? Or am I only greedy when I want my portion and yours too? I keep waiting for that explanation, not paying full attention to your other metaphors: office work is like hunting prey, only abstracted.
P5. Language problem. Watch out for (eliminate!) unattached introductory phrases such as: “By facilitating agreements in universally understood terms.” This needs a facilitator. Your sentence does not provide one. So either “By facilitating, we” or “When agreements are facilitated, there is no need.” Get it?
What “items”? You haven’t mentioned currency in this paragraph, or specifically in the previous paragraph. Surely you mean chunks of stone or gold coins or something, but your “such” needs an antecedent.
You mean “supplying evidence.”
I recognize the difficulty of summarizing the Brazil story, Drew, but I doubt I’d understand this paragraph at all if I hadn’t heard the story myself, which means you’re leaving most readers behind.
P6. Well, it may seem logical NOW for systems of trade to be conjured! Predicting it never seemed so, I’ll bet.
I don’t understand the presence of the medieval times sentence.
I can curb my dog, in a transitive way. But I don’t know how to curb intransitively, the way I could grind to a standstill, or simply stop.
This has top grade potential all over it, Drew, but it’s not there yet. Let me know (using the word feedback 🙂 ) when you want another look.
—Watch
I formally request further feedback on this update, thank you
Feedback provided. —DSH
Thank you for continuing to revise and seek feedback, Drew.
Don’t rewrite it again if it pleases you in this form, but please let me model for you a style that is easier to follow and retains the flavor of your inventiveness.
Money, nimble and obscure, has represented goods and services for millennia, based on nothing but our unconditional belief in its symbolic value. Though the value changes relative to the goods and has to be negotiated by the participants, even the disorder of those fluctuations is preferable to anarchy.
Humans are intrinsically selfish because the fittest survive. Before the advent of commerce, we killed to get what we needed or perished ourselves. Famished and scrawny by the watering hole, with only its water to sustain us, we yearned for food (not money!). When the giant with his gigantic spear, dragging a lion carcass, approached us seeking water, commerce might have saved us both, but instead we were soon dead and the giant was lonely but well-fed and no longer thirsty. His instincts had automatically assigned greater value to the water that would sustain him than to thirsty competitors, but his inability to conceive of trade, let alone currency, failed to advance civilization.
Money, the universal indicator that allows us to trade without bloodshed, is what makes civilization civil. It does so by codifying all that we own or control into divisible, incremental digits of relative value that we can count. The vehicle of transmission — the coins, nuggets, slips of paper — is arbitrary and meaningless, except as symbol. An NPR broadcast by Jacob Goldstein and David Kestenbaum describes a most peculiar symbol, the fei of the inventive Yap islanders. Yap had no gold or minerals with which to make coins, but “explorers from Yap found limestone deposits on an island hundreds of miles away. And they carved this limestone into huge stone discs, which they brought back across the sea on their small bamboo boats.” Their choice of giant limestone disks as currency would have been stupid if it hadn’t worked. They stopped killing each other over water because of the arbitrary decision to let big stones represent a portion of what they owned, which could be traded for water.
I won’t go on, but maybe you could, Drew, now or on later papers, being helpful to your readers by connecting more of the dots and using your obvious facility and cleverness to serve the idea, not the language. Worth a shot?
P4. Save the brilliant: work is metaphorical. You make the commonplace seem fresh when you note that we herd paper now instead of cattle and get paid in paper which we trade for beef. Or at least we did, before even the paper evaporated into digits.
P5. Save most of it but reorganize that introduction. It wants to end on the faith, not the illogicality.Your quote is longish and could be paraphrased to better effect. I think your conclusion is that the people “chose to accept” the real because the marker is irrelevant if only it can be traded for a loaf of bread today and again tomorrow, not a loaf today and half a loaf tomorrow.
P6. Money is a magic act. We cover an egg with a sheet of paper and reveal a chicken where the egg once was. We agree not to examine the trick too closely for fear of going hungry. Of course it’s not logical to place value in the transformative paper any more than the magician’s silk, but our belief in the trick sustains us. We know that if we look up the magician’s sleeve, society will crumble and all the eggs will break.
Or whatever metaphor you like. But just one.