Money as an Agent of Death

The trouble with currencies is that they assess and assign value in unfair, arbitrary ways, usually based on availability of supply.  Because of this uncoupling between the abstract and actual value of things, everything which is monetized eventually becomes either devalued or overvalued.  The destruction of natural resources and invention of single-use throwaway products are two examples of how money undervalues and simultaneously exhausts resources.  This civilisation has systematically overvalued useless, inert substances like gold and diamonds, while undervaluing priceless resources in ecosystems which have been the basis for civilisation itself.

Money is an agent of death, because it thrives on expiration: single-use, waste of resources and slave labour ensure that the conveyor belt of production keeps moving and profits keep coming in.  In this model of “destroy now, collapse later” necrocapitalism, premature death is an essential factory setting of everything that lives and breathes in the consumaverse, while re-use, recycling and upcycling are existential threats to the economy.  Destruction, exploitation and extinction are absent from the vocabulary of the necrosystem: these are essential vehicles of economic efficiency and profit maximization that the system is willing to risk everything for.

Humans have converted the planet into a single-use commodity.  There are hardly any products for the manufacture of which something or someone didn’t have to die, be exploited, or go extinct.  Much like smartphones, computers and other devices purposely made to break down after some time, we made Earth obsolescent.  We condemned an entire planet to its death just so that we can make some money that will soon be meaningless.   Earth itself has become a commodity, cruising on the necrocapitalist conveyor belt on its way to the trash.  The more natural resources it destroys, the more money this civilisation prints to compensate for the loss of natural capital.  The only natural outcome of this is collapse.

George is an author, researcher, molecular biologist and food scientist.

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