The All Mighty Dollar, Barter and Trade or a Little Bit of Both?

It is said that there has been no evidence of a society surviving or thriving by primarily relying on barter and trade. With saying that, it would seem like the government wants to lead the majority of people to believe that money in the form of coins and paper is the greatest means of survival. Why is it that money defines most of what we do and want to do? Who invented it, and what was their intention behind inventing it? There is the saying, " The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Was money created to separate and control? If so, separate what, and control what? Any object, as long as it's agreed upon by both parties trading it, is considered a form of currency. Primarily, in the concrete jungle, only money is used in trade for food, clothes, houses, vehicles, utilities, and the livelihood of man. You could make a quilt and try to trade it for groceries at the store. We all know this wouldn't work as a form of trade, as the quilt would not pay for the store to remain open. Society has been formed around money, with barter and trade still in the picture, but as a secondary less meaningful type of system.

You wouldn't dream of using paper money to wallpaper your house, or coins to decorate pots for plants would you? Of course not. You need it to pay your mortgage, bills, buy clothes, and to get anything else for your survival. My point is, money is not used in any other way except to purchase goods. With barter and trade, people started out using cowrie shells, glass beads, goods for goods, and skills for skills. You can make jewelry from the cowrie shells and glass beads and trade them for something else. You can make pie from fruits traded and clothes from fabric. If you're a blacksmith, you can create horseshoes for your neighbor's horse in turn for wood, or any other skill that the two of you think to be equal to each other.

When coin money was invented, the face of whoever was ruling at the time would be imprinted on the coin. Royalty used the gold and silver coins, while the poor or lower class used bronze. This separated the so called rich from the poor. The rich could buy things at any market they wanted to, but the poor could not go to the rich and buy in their markets, they weren't allowed in that part of town, unless of course you were the hired help. In some cases you weren't even hired, your family was threatened and you were forced to be the help. There have always been families with old money that pass it along from generation to generation. These families seem to be the ones who decided to use coins and paper money for currency. This way, they could have their way of life continue by collecting so called taxes from the so called common man, while paying no taxes themselves. This practice is still repeated today.

Instead it is in the form of giant corporations that provide meat, vegetables, milk, pharmaceuticals, oil, diamonds, gold, homes, vehicles, and natural resources. We the people in turn pay for these things with, you guessed it, money. We can barter and trade with each other just fine, but we can't barter for a new car with hand made tables and chairs. While the big corporations are making millions, they still try to push out the local farmers, grocers, and craftsman by buying them out so there is no competition. Immanent domain is also used to push out the small farmer, grocer or craftsman for what they call newer, bigger, better and shinier. Competition for what? Small farmers and craftsman want to make a living doing what they love, not compete with the corporate giants. Some corporations are started by people that weren't born with a gold or silver spoon in their mouth. Some people know what it's like to work hard to create a business instead of get it handed down to them. I find myself wondering if the people who own big corporations are sociopaths.

Not all corporations are bad. Some even support self sustainability and are for fair trade. Fair trade helps sustain developing countries to teach them how to use the free market for their growth and positive survival. Obviously I'm for the people who have corporations that help other people, not enslave or hurt other people. Corporations sustain the government with the money made. The government in turn is supposed to help the people it governs with that money. It seems taxes go up and the paychecks either go down or stay the same. I've heard the term live within your means. A lot of people start out living within their means and end up in a huge crater sized hole because their property taxes went up. Some things are just out of the majority of the populations control.

If money was created as a system to sustain an economy and the people working for and with the economy, where did things become misappropriated? Human error is to blame for that. Money is not the root of all evil, it is greed that is the root of evil. Money is a tangible tool used by the puppeteer to control and separate. He who controls the money has the power. Why is it that government can create money out of paper and coins, and give it a value, but when the average Joe does this it is called counterfeiting, and one can go to jail for many years for it? The people who created it misuse it the most. Some spend 48 hours or more a week earning it only to have it intended for someone else. In human history trading a skill or good for another skill or good worked just fine. Money is only designed to purchase and has no other value than that. It in fact even looses it's value when the government creates too much of it. That never made sense to me. In conclusion, you can't eat money. Don't get down on yourself when money gets tight. You have skills, and can create goods to barter with. If you can trade skills for skills and goods for goods you can use your money for other things. You can have more for yourself and enjoy life the way you intended to. You define you, money does not.