The Need of ‘Money’s New Clothes’
![Emperor New Clothes](https://us.jscinteractivo.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/emperornewclothes2.jpg)
The Emperor’s New Clothes is one of my favorite tales from childhood. As we know this Andersen’s fable narrates the story of an emperor exceedingly fond of new clothes and two swindlers who take advantage of that dependence to cheat him, as well as the entire town’s community, by promising to wave a suit of clothes invisible for inept people (please read it!). To sum up, the fable’s warning is: “It doesn’t have to be true what the majority think it is”. Well, after approaching this module I evoke such realization since it’s the kind of sensation that looms to me. I precisely feel the child’s essential view at the very moment he claims the emperor “hasn’t got anything on”! One can arguably compare both him (emperor/government) and the town’s herd (society) with some of the traits that come up from the prevalent model (Capitalism), by all means addict to consumerism and faking appearances. Moreover, you can suit the swindlers with both the Cartesian banking and marketing systems which have the knack of deceiving, lowballing, manipulating and pressuring societies, supported by governments. And of course, you can match the invisible suit of clothes with the ‘money delusion’ in which the existing socioeconomic system relies on.
That’s basically what I found through Gaia Education, and thus some new ways to fix such harming fiction. Indeed, it’s inevitable to suggest scoping out Harari’s ideas again since the matter of how money works as a delusion is one of his compelling approaches. He expresses “Money is […] a system of mutual trust, and not just any system of mutual trust: Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.” (Harari, 2014) A system which is just data, “created by banks in the form of debt, practically out of thin air” (Gaia Education, 2018). It’s astounding to figure out how we’ve been trusting in something that essentially doesn’t exist yet that is certainly encouraging the decimation of our planet by honoring exponential growth (imperative) in a finite world. As someone says in The Money Fix documentary, “Money stops the world for going…in its current form inhibits transactions and trading”. I cannot be more agree with assert that redesigning the human presence on earth also means redesigning such imaginary system of mutual trust. So we have to keep soaring “the believing” in the new forms suggested as well as fostering other ones to contribute to a cultural evolution from the homo economicus towards the truly homo reciprocans, something that goes further than game economic theories.
Because of the child’s view, the herd at last realizes that the emperor “hasn’t got anything on”. However, despite the governor deduces they are on the right, he determines “This procession has got to go on” and keep walking more proudly than ever with all his entourage…Any similarity with reality is not a coincidence at all…
Author: Juan Sebastián Cárdenas Salas (April 14, 2018)
From the serie: Reflections Around Gaia Education
Money, it’s a crime
Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise it’s no surprise that they’re giving none awayPink Floyd – Money (the Dark Side of the Moon)
Watch The Money Fix – A Documentary for Monetary Reform:
Watch Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein – A Short Film
Read The Emperor’s New clothes:
http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html
Read ‘MONEY AND POLITICS’ by Yuval Noah Harari:
https://www.ynharari.com/topic/money-and-politics/
Resources of support / Book references
Economic Dimension – Module’s 2 Handbook general contents and references (Gaia Education, 2018)
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (2014)
Cover Image taken from wikia.com (adapted by Jscinteractivo)
http://es.cuentos-de-hadas.wikia.com/wiki/El_traje_nuevo_del_emperador