[bluegatty]

No - money it's a materialization of the expression of power. Desire is a subset of that.

The 'power' part is one of the most important things to understand.

In our every day lives, we see regular people 'creating value by working' and 'collecting money' and then 'spending according to their needs and desires'.

We see things like groceries, fuel, food - it all seems like relatively open and mostly kind of fair system - and it is, at that level.

But significant amount of wealth is accumulated into structure and by individuals that have power totally disproportinate to their value creation.

Kings of England didn't rule 'arbitrarily' - they owned most of the land - that was their power.

If you own all the land, the serfs can't escape your taxation - however you think you can create value, it will be taxed away.

Corporations have incredible economies of scale and leverage through division of labour that individuals could ever have - and - they are even 'limited liability.

We set individual up to compete against goliaths, and then give those goliaths special advantages.

'Parts of the Economy' are relatively fair, just, open etc. but much/most of it is not, it's a game of power leverage and accumulation, as it always has been. It's that part that people don't have a strong instinct for.

[paulddraper]

Well it’s both of those things.

Power is exercised according to desire.

[bluegatty]

You're not wrong - but when people say 'we vote with our money' ... it ends up being misleading, because of our instinct to think that individuals make those decisions collectively with their choices and will. Generally it's 'who has the power (and therefore the money)' will make those decisions.

It's a fine point, because some people believe that everything is controlled by a cabal of secret bankers and rich people and that's not true either.

'Nobody is charge' - that's also unsettling. But there are centres of great influence, many of which do not have our best interests at heart.