1438 Money vs. Strength

Before money, the distribution of wealth was determined by strength & avarice; a high level of both was empire building. When democracy entered the equation, where physical strength, force, was voluntarily ceded to government, the abstraction of money & avarice determined who gets what. Underlying both of these social frameworks is the same level of violence, it’s just more concealed by money. Add onto this concept personal autonomy & liberty, where people make decisions for themselves and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of their actions, and society will stratify into those who have it all, a tiny fraction, and everyone else. At least where strength was the medium of exchange, most people had some value for whatever strength they added to a group, be it spear carrying, childbearing, or merit of some kind. In the case of money, people have no perceived value except as slaves to serve the whims of the wealthy, who by-in-large did not get that way via merit, but were instead lucky or unscrupulous. Initially, there was a rough correspondence between wealth and merit but as generations pass, that connection has been lost. For every Elon Musk, there are thousands of heirs of billionaires, bandits & bullshitters. It’s to the point that strength will again replace money.