The Powers of Money

A Relation of Totalities

At any given moment there is just so much money in the world. In the next moment there may be more money, or less, or the same. In the next there will be more, less or the same again.

It doesn't matter. At a given moment the totality of money is fixed.

It is the same with goods, any way you define them. All the world's goods may grow, or shrink, or stay the same, but at any given moment their totality is fixed.

In this particular moment we have both a totality of money and a totality of goods. Now the moment has passed. You and I could not have stopped it, nor -- had we done so -- have we the capacity to count all the money or all the goods the moment held. Thus, in each successive, smallest part of time the totality of money and the totality of goods are fixed, but these totalities are unobservable and unmeasurable. Then, a moment later, they have changed.

Still, the two totalities define one another. You could say, "At this moment all the money in the world is worth all the goods," for without all the goods the money is truly worthless. Or you could say, "At this moment all the goods have such and such a price," for what does all the world's money stand for, if not the price -- at such a moment -- of all the goods?

The two wholes are equivalent. Within a given part of time both are fixed. In the next part of time both will have changed, or stayed the same, or one will have changed while the other stayed the same. In the next part of time each will have changed again, or not, while -- as totalities within successions of single moments -- they remain the measures of one another.

The reality in which the succession of moments occurs is beyond the realm of our participation. It is not, however, disengaged from our experience. As the totalities of money and goods wax and wane over time, their relation expresses itself to us. Out of this expression emerge the principles of practical economics.

A Relation of Fractions

Suppose in one hand I held all the world's money; in the other hand all the world's goods. It is just a picture, but let us say that all the money is four dollars and all the goods is four apples. The money and the goods are equivalent in a special way.

At this moment four dollars is the same as four apples, and one dollar is the same as one apple. You could trade a dollar for an apple, or two dollars for two -- and so on, up to four. Thus, the relation between the totalities is expressed in the relation between their fractions.

Now that moment is gone. In the next moment, all the world's money in one hand is still four dollars, but all the world's goods in the other hand is only two apples. In this moment four dollars is the same as two apples, and one dollar is the same as half an apple.

The relation between the totalities is the same. Mathematically, too, the relation between the fractions is the same. But the material nature of the fractions has changed. Now a dollar buys half what it did before.

It wouldn't matter, except that apples are food and people must eat.