A WORLD WITHOUT MONEY
A World Without Money!
M G Warrier
Values were respected more,
before prices came into being. Price, which is a byproduct of money, has turned
the world upside down. Now there is a price for everything. Or, reversely, you
can get anything for a price. From play school admission to doctorates from
universities, from selection for competitions in schools to coveted prizes or
medals or awards, or wins in cricket matches or getting a Common Wealth Games
(CWG) held n your country, for all your needs, someone is there to fix a price
and sell or arrange it for you.
Think of the
‘hidden treasures’ at Sreepadmanabha
Temple Apex Court . Reports
indicate that even by conservative estimates the value of the treasure
comprising gold, jewellery, diamonds and other valuables brought into inventory
may exceed a staggering Rs one lakh crore and an unknown number of storage
spaces remain to be opened. This has called for coordination among several
agencies to ensure not only the safety of the treasure taken out for listing
and accounting as mandated by the apex court, but also to provide adequate
security for the temple premises. Reports indicate that government is taking
all care to ensure that divinity of the premises is protected and the treasure
which remained safe for centuries will not go unprotected after the unintended
disclosures about the location and value of this divine wealth incidental to
the mandated accounting requirements.
Future handling of the treasure will be, hopefully, under the guidance
of GOI in consultation with the present management of the temple, state
government and the Travancore royal family (as vital information could still be
with that family on the accumulation and positioning of assets of the nature
now found). But, just imagine, the present accounting did not take place.
Perhaps the present and future headaches of government and people around this
temple would have been less to a great extent.
It is not just those who accumulate money or
buy or sell things or avail services get affected by money. Recently, a
commuter in a Mumbai suburban local train was fighting with his co-passenger
about the extent of losses suffered by Ambani brothers during the last two
years due to fluctuations in the stock market. Dispute was about a few billions
of rupees. A country points accusing fingers at some promises to give grants to
countries which didn’t get selected as the venue for CWG for development of
sports made by some other countries (including India ) at the time of deciding the
venue for 2010 Common Wealth Games. It claims such promises act as bribes to
support grant-givers at the time of voting. The cost of construction of one
square foot of residential area is in the neighborhood of eight hundred rupees.
But the selling price varies between Rs 1500 to a few lakhs of rupees depending
on where the residential building is located. Can you distinguish between bribe
and incentive or commission and margin or interest and profit-sharing?
See the problems faced by
governments in managing GDP growth and inflation. Inflation is only one of the indicators that
tell governments and regulators the results of various fiscal and monetary
policy measures they initiate. Depending on the direction they look, they are
always able to either an optimistic prediction or tell us where either of them
need correct the next step. Problem is more about various categories of
inflation, the methods of calculation of inflation and how the inflation (CPI
or WPI inflation, for instance) affect different sectors of economy and
different income-groups. There is no clarity or uniformity in perspective on
such things among those who are responsible to prescribe corrective measures.
The ‘Inflation elephant’ is perceived as different monsters by scholars from
different schools of economics. You can trace all these problems to the money
monster which was unwittingly let loose by someone who did not bargain for such
inauspicious consequences.
The problem for the common man is compounded
when he is offered same goods at one price at one outlet and at three times
that price at a different outlet (the other day tuar dal was sold at Rs34 at a
PDS outlet and at Rs106 at a posh departmental store in Thiruvananthapuram) and
he is told that food inflation is coming down by 50 basis points.
All these problems would not have
existed, if money was not invented. Absence of money will reduce the chances of
corruption, inequitable distribution of wealth and rich becoming richer and
poor becoming poorer, as the advertisers say, by 99.9 per cent.
The thought of a world without
money has fascinated me since my childhood days. Of course the reason for
hating money those days was that I didn’t have money and my friends and
neighbors enjoyed making me jealous by showing off the money power they
possessed before me and others in my position.
Take my own case, now. I have
completed a somewhat successful career in a bank, have a bank account and
have last year gained the status of a senior citizen. Still, I feel, the fellow
who invented money and his followers who made it currency have done more harm than that unlucky wise man who
invented atom bomb. Of course, now
the reasons for my hatred towards money are more mature than jealousy.
For a moment, imagine, man gets
out of the clutches of money, or there is no money in the world. All symbols
from $ to the one recently figured out for Rupee vanishes, everything else
remaining the same. Yes, science and technology, all results of research so
far, literature, agriculture, industry, art and whatever you can imagine remain
and continue to perform and help the world to move forward, but money is
conspicuous by its absence! This will bring drastic changes.
It will take considerable time to
rehabilitate people like those working in the financial sector, as the nature
of their jobs will change. They will have to re-skill themselves to manage a
world entirely dependent on a new barter system which will result in revolutionary
changes in the power-balance internationally.
Having been there for millions of
years without money, world will adjust itself to a money-less environment where
peace prosperity and happiness will not be dependent on bank balances but on the value addition to life and environment
each one makes.
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