Final Assignment

Consider carefully the content of the first four lessons of this course. Identify an issue that you feel is important in relation to money and society but that has been overlooked or insufficiently analysed so far in these four lessons.

Write a short paper presenting a convincing argument describing your chosen issue, explaining why it is important and discussing how it relates to key ideas introduced in the four lessons. You should cite relevant sources to support your argument. The main body of your paper should be no more than 800 words; give your paper a short, clear title and add your name.

Consult the grading grid in the next slide to see how your assignment will be assessed by your peers on this course. (The list of references at the end of your paper is not included in the 800 word limit and you should include the details specified in section D of the grid).

ANSWER:

Money and the organization of work

Money has only fetish meaning if not connected to real value in a society. In this respect money serve both as a means and as an end.

Real value is created through processes where raw material, work, knowledge and creativity in various proportions are made into goods, services and configurations.

Some processes occur in nature without human intervention, e.g. growth of plants and animals. These were the foundation for gather/hunting and agricultural societies. Exchange of values based on barter or via symbolic items reflected a peer-to-peer production mode.

The first industrial revolution created new ways of organizing work: A strict command hierarchy where decisions were made at the top and implemented at the bottom in a large army of uneducated minions who performed mindless work like swinging a pickaxe or operating a mechanical loom, with middle managers barking orders at them (Klein).

Although much has changed during the 250 years since then, the system of management and organizing is still mainly the same; hierarchical command and control.

Products that have value for others are produced entirely at the bottom level of the pyramid, whereas the monetary and financial system supports the rigid hierarchy; revenues are accumulated at the top and wages are distributed downwards. This reflects a power structure of production that still is dominant. The monetary system supports outdated ways of organizing work, and the frequent financial crises are sympthoms of a monetary and financial system without any connection to the real production and real economy. Finance acrobats are playing with imaginary money in their closed casinos (Belmonte). Inflation of the casino economy is done by creating more imaginary money or by robbing the outside taxpayers (Szunke). Bubbles are blown until they burst, time and time again.

In most companies and organizations today the smartest people are found at the bottom level, and they are closest to problems and opportunities. Smart companies take advantage of this situation and encourage nimble actions and peer-to-peer operation without intervention from ignorant supervisors.

Examples of huge efforts of this kind are Wikipedia and Linux, although based on voluntary work. A comprehensive list of the most responsive companies and their traits may be found in (Undercurrent).

In a business environment, this kind of Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) would fall in place and be streamlined automatically with a rewarding monetary system reflecting the peer-to-peer production (Mougayar).

References:

Sebastian Klein: From Coal Mines to Cubicles: Why The Way We Work Is Broken and How to Fix It

William Mougayar: What Does it Take to Succeed as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization?

Zac Zimmer: Manifesting the Internet: A Review of Dmytri Kleiner’s The Telekommunist Manifesto

Undercurrent: The 20 Most Responsive Companies of 2014

Susana Martoin Belmonte: Financial Crisis or Monetary Crisis

Aleksandra Szunke: The Role of Financialization in Banking Sector Instability