Money and Semiotics
“Money, credit, and capital are, quite literally, systems of
writing.”
Money is inextricably woven into our civilization’s defining story of self. It’s often been said that money makes the World go round, but what is money exactly? Answering this question often proves more challenging than it may initially seem. The short answer is that money itself is purely an abstraction which takes on various forms that represent values within its own ontology. Conceptually, money functions to negotiate social relations by acting as a legally sanctioned medium of exchange, unit of account and a store of value. As a medium of exchange, money operates as a semiotic system for social agreements and thus determines how we come to understand the world within a bounded system of signs and symbols. Indeed one of the first uses of writing was for keeping accounts.
Monetary exchanges present a structural logic similar to linguistic discourse and just as language shapes peoples’ thoughts and actions, so too does money. Money has the capacity to communicate a multiplicity of meanings depending on how the symbol is structured in reality. Just as a word has no meaning outside of language, money cannot be understood outside of a monetized culture. Both are therefore self-contained discursive systems in which the meaning and experience of a symbol must be interpreted by making references to the system within which the symbol operates. In addition, just as a word may have different meanings depending on the context in which it is used, money communicates experiences between its users that differ depending on the mediated relationship. It’s naive then to assume that money is a value-neutral system free from social biases and power relations. Yet in a capitalist economy money is taken to be the universal equivalent, meaning it is the measure to which everything else is compared. This is a belief system and a destructive one at that.
“Money as an external, universal medium turns an image into reality and reality into a mere image.”
Professor Carl Wennerlind has cautioned that the power of money can extend as far as measuring and valuing human life, so much so that the commodification of people appears natural and unquestionable. Marxist critique reasons that the medium of money knows no bounds, it extends its powers of measurement and persuasion to everything within its reach. Money gains so much power only because we accept the conceptual framework that it places us within and become impervious to its dominion over our lives. Why do some stock brokers commit suicide when the market crashes? Because money is literally their reality, they cannot think beyond it. The same question is now being posed to us all, can we think beyond money?
“All money is a matter of belief.”
People often confuse the meaning of the words money, wealth and value. Wealth refers to an abundance of resources, both tangible and intangible objects that yield benefits to society. Values are inter-subjectively shared agreements about the worth of something. What is necessary to realize is that not all values are monetary, nor should they be monetized. The ontology of money does not reside in the features of the objects that symbolize it, nor the in functions it provides. The emergence of money is the result of an abstract formulation of value measurement and thus at the deepest level of analysis, money can never be materially consistent regardless of what commodity it is backed by. In addition and contrary to popular belief, money is not wealth. As human beings wealth is common to us all, there are more than enough resources to ensure that everyone has enough food, clothing, and shelter. Unfortunately, when money is confused for wealth it is securitised through the accumulation of privately-owned resources called assets. Today we can witness this stranglehold of dispossession around us as 1% of the population holds 99% of the wealth.