Economic Power

Politics is about power. Power comes from those with money. Economics is about money. Therefore the economic system is about power, who has most of it, and who has less.

Power struggles in the real world may appear to be complex, but ultimately, they all boil down to binary struggles between 2 actors (individuals or groups).

The power struggle that would have been the very first would have been based on survival.  So the 2 actors at play was the earliest form of human versus, its ability to consume resources to stay alive.  Man versus the environment.

When money as a concept becomes embedded, its because people could be violently separated from their possessions (their resources).  People with these resources gave some of those resources to men who would be prepared to be violent in order to stop others from taking their resources.  Something we call today, an Army.

One key resource that these people wanted was gold.  Why gold?  Because someone with power had physical possession such as land, horses or castles that they could sell, and they did sell that in return for what they wanted. 

Gold was wanted by men in an army, because they could give the gold to someone else in return for food for their family.  So the owner of the castle wanted more gold so they could pay their army.  So it has value, gifted to it by those with power because of their physical resources and ability to resist violence from those who want to take it.

Over time, carrying around gold becomes difficult for armies to protect, so its replaced with promissory notes, what we call paper money, which in the last few decades has again been replaced with electronic numbers on electronic devices.

The economic power struggle that has existed since people fought over their physical resources, their gold, or their promissory notes is between 2 actors.  Those with it, and those without it or those who want to get some of it.

In modern Britain we all have some money.  So who is it between now?  I believe that its between who it has always been between in a world of haves and have less/have nots, those who have to work for their money, people who do not have gold, castles and horses, and those with these resources.  The owners of that resource, or capital who also need people to work for them to get more gold and protect their castles.

Gold, castles and horses today is essentially, shares in companies or money in your bank account.

For companies and share prices, that means making profits. And for companies to continue to create profit, they need people willing to work for gold (so that they can buy food).

The more gold you give to your army, the less you have and the richer the soldiers become, until a point when perhaps they don’t want to work for you anymore. So you need to keep as much of it for yourself, and only give them what you can get away with. The more men you have willing to join your army for less and less gold, the better that is for you. The more profit you make.

In my previous blog here, I said I was going to write about an economic system to replace the one we have today.  And I am still going to do this, but I wanted first to establish the actors in the system that need to be dealt with, and understanding the power centres, the actors in the system is important because it means we are aware of those actors who will raise an army and fight to keep their resources and those who have to work for their resources.