On something I don’t really understand…
So, today I want to write my thoughts about economics. Or finance. Or more specifically, on value and money.
All my life I have been taught about systems around us. The systems that rule our biological insides, like our digestive process or the way we turn fat into energy. We’ve learnt about plants turning sunlight into life, water into air and seeds into more plants. In electronic devices we see how the human being has emulated some of these concepts. The input of data has a basis into simple on/off bits and the computing processes have evolved to simulate nature in its actions and reactions. All the systems we have seen succeed and evolve have a common denominator: efficiency. A system with leaks and wasted resources is doomed to eventually fail, to crumb. So, then, why do we bet so much for the present economic system?
I don’t mean to discard all the hard work, well-thought theory and the sweat-soaked basics. I’m no expert, thus the title of this post, but all this hit me last night while a little drunk: Systems are meant to be efficient, but the implicit humanity in our economic system makes it hard to keep a steady pace, starting with the fact of money and income. If the system was really perfect there wouldn’t be any savings, a person would perform an action with a value and would receive what is needed to live. But the problem of humanity is that we don’t only want to live; we dream and want to fulfill those dreams, we grow and want to accomplish more and in the end there is a lot more to be acquired than “a living”.
So, for a conclusion, I don’t mean to see our economic way of doing things as an evil and failing one. It’s just that our efforts should be aimed to quantify these variables that affect the system, this way the efficiency would be more achievable. If we can give values to consumption desire and professional aspirations, we can try to adjust the value of an activity, product or service on a more realistic level.
