The conflation of money and things

(lithub.com)

55 points | by bookofjoe 5 hours ago

4 comments

  • skybrian 2 hours ago
    This is a book excerpt. I didn’t find any in-depth reviews, but one of the authors posted a summary of the book here:

    https://jwmason.org/slackwire/against-money/

    • skybrian 1 minute ago
      I found a newer blog post based on a speech the author gave with some ideas from their book. It's very long because he's talking about multiple related ideas, but I excerpted some quotes here:

      https://skybrian-links.exe.xyz/post/765

      Here's one quote:

      > We can find this same principle down through the history of the corporation. When in the beginning of the 20th century we see the generalization of the corporate form, it’s not a process where large-scale investment required raising more funds. The problem that the corporation is solving is that you have large-scale enterprises with long-lived specialized fixed assets, on the one hand, and wealth owners, on the other hand, with claims on those enterprises — often the owners of smaller enterprises that merge into one larger one, or the heirs of the founder — who don’t want an interest in this particular company. They want money. And so the function of the corporate form is to allow the conversion of ownership rights into money — to enable payments that will satisfy these claimants, so that their authority over the production process can be pooled, their smaller interests can be assembled into a larger whole.

      > This is not a system for raising funds for investment. It’s a system for consolidating authority. It’s a system for reconciling the need for large-scale, long-lived organizational production, on the one hand, with the desire of the wealthy to hold their wealth in a more money-like form, on the other. As William Lazonick says, the corporation is not a vehicle for raising funds for investment, it’s a vehicle for distributing money to the wealthy. The origin of the corporation as we know it is as a vehicle for moving funds out of productive enterprises to asset-owners.

      I would put it differently: sometimes it's about raising funds, but the more important part (he claims) is being able to cash out.

  • justonceokay 1 hour ago
    A friend of mine uses the term “coin sickness“ to describe somebody who would rather have money than material wealth. Someone who sees the brand of clothing but couldn’t identify quality fabrics or stitching.
    • whytaka 47 minutes ago
      While financialized society is still standing, I'd much rather have money than material wealth.

      Security and freedom, time, and well-being. Worth much more than another luxury t-shirt.

  • SteveDavis88 4 hours ago
    So many popups.
    • kspacewalk2 3 hours ago
      I love reading articles in Firefox. uBlock Origin takes care of most annoyances, immediately using Reader View on load makes it them look the same.
    • layer8 1 hour ago
      Didn’t see any in mobile Safari with ad blocker.
    • dnnddidiej 3 hours ago
      That popups has an annoying article. I think.
    • deanputney 3 hours ago
      My mobile browser gave up it was so bad. Shame, it seemed like it could have been an interesting read.
      • rationalist 3 hours ago
        It looks good on Firefox For Android with the uBlock Origin add-on.
      • card_zero 3 hours ago
        Works fine on Lynx (on Termux).
    • everdrive 3 hours ago
      Only if you run javascript
    • CraigJPerry 3 hours ago
      i turned off adguard on ios safari to see what you're talking about... oh wow! You really didn't overstate it.

      In other news, my appreciation of the block lists i have configured in adguard just notched up a few more points!

    • paulpauper 2 hours ago
      lol 11 comments on this article and all but 1 are about the popups
    • kridsdale1 3 hours ago
      I use Chrome for iOS. On human-hostile sites like that, I take the human out of the loop. I press the “hey Gemini, what is this page about?” button and read a clean version in an overlay window.
  • Hnrobert42 52 minutes ago
    Why do people write like this? So much preamble. Unnecessary metaphors. Just make your point and be done with it.
    • kristianc 31 minutes ago
      Because "money and physical things are conflated in our thinking" is simple enough to sound trite.
    • toasty228 21 minutes ago
      Why do people even write, just so us pictures am I right ?
    • SilasX 45 minutes ago
      Haha agreed, but remember, it's posted on lit[erature]hub, not tech[nical]hub.