PAGE IN PROGRESS What you see here is a page of my hypertext book POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. Initially empty, this page will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience!
The common understanding of the relationship between money and power is this: People with money have power, because money allows rich people do things that people will less money are not allowed to do.
But we may ask ourselves, why does money give power to individuals who have them? The power of money rests on its meaning. Meaning of money is maintained not only by those who have lots of it, but also by those who don't have much.
Meanings of money are not "good" or "bad". Because everybody shares and supports the meaning of money, people have been able to create complex civilizations. The barter economy is not enough for that. Money has its benefits, but it also has its drawbacks, as when some people start valuing money more than anything else. This may happen because money means power for most people in the world. Not just power to do everything, just everyday power of being able to have things and live one's life in a certain way.
Money is an example of macropower because it exists through meaning supported by most people in the world.
Harari "Sapiens" Chapter 10 Money gave power to the king. Money meant people's belief in the power of the king, submission to the king. King gave power to money, as his stamp on a coin meant that if somebody falsifies a coin, he/she will be severely punished.
„ Die Menschen sprachen zwar unterschiedliche Sprachen, gehorchten unterschiedlichen Herrschern und beteten unterschiedliche Götter an, doch sie alle glaubten an Gold, Silber und die Münzen aus diesen Edelmetallen.“ This made globalization possible