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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Back in the Olden Days

 Scene: Museum
Young child
Old person

Child pointing at display case exhibiting coins and currency notes.

"What's these?"

"Well, that was money?"

"What did it do?"

"Money was to buy and sell things. A means of exchange"

"What does buying and selling mean?"
" It'll take a lot of time to explain it all so for the time being, try to understand just this difference. Nowadays, as and when we feel hungry, what do we do? We just take what we need from where it is stored; and that's all, simply because we all have free access to them, we all collectively own and control them. But in those days when only a few people privately owned and controlled all means of production and distribution, the vast majority of us had little or nothing to own or control but our ability to work, which we were obliged to sell for a wage or a salary which was always less in terms of value than what we produced, and then we had to spend the money thus received to buy what we ourselves had produced — our food, clothes and all that we needed."

"Really! But, what happened when you couldn't find a buyer for your ability to work?"
" We had to do without and starve. It's as simple as that!"

"Starve? A strange word, but what did it mean?"

"It meant to die of hunger, from the lack of food "

"Even if there were enough to feed everybody? And all because you didn't possess these coloured pieces of worthless paper and bits of metal to buy what you had made? That is horrifying to even think about!!"

" Quite so! It was as exactly as you've just stated. However, money wasn't worthless paper but it represented a great worth — private property. It was the ultimate expression of the relationionship between people. A totally inhuman relationship reigning over humanity."

"And they to think it was claimed such a society was civilised. How stupid they were back then!"

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