Believe it or not this is technically one of my areas of expertise because it is what I have my undergraduate degree in.
Making money, trade, and exchanging goods for units of value that have no value themselves is one of the best conceptual links between animal reality and higher conceptual reality of humanity.
The practice and activity of trade and business did not develop out of self-interest to acquire the units with which goods are exchanged. The exchanging of goods occurred before there was a system of accounting using fixed units of measurement to simplify the process the more widespread economic networks between peoples became.
Can you imagine having to explain to Fred Flintstone the importance of using money to start exchanging for items instead of the items of desire and necessity themselves? No easy task in my opinion, and one of necessity that extends the reach and utility of human language in its endeavor. New concepts had to be identified with words that did not exist but were just as real as grain and ore.
Why would someone go through that endeavor? Probably because it was a pain in the neck getting everything they needed with all the different values people had. Life was not more difficult than necessary until someone saw how it could be better by assigning standard values that could be agreed upon while trusting each other to honor their commitment to the system. To that end, what assurance did people have that they could trust each other?
Regulation and enforcement of standards by the already existing authority that handled matters trust between neighbors. It is the existence of a healthy law and its enforcement that allows people to sleep in peace among a multitude of people they don’t know and trust they are safe and will continue to be safe along with their assets and possessions.
So then what interest is there to convince the reigning king that this is in his best interest to go through the effort to establish among his domain? Taxes maintained and accounted for according to the same standard of value as that which is used for trade.
At the inception of formal economics of value the entire purpose was good for everyone involved. All people benefitted no matter what they wanted, what faith they worshipped, or whether they were allies or enemies. It was quite literally to everyone’s benefit to do this, and do you know who benefits most?
The common every day people who work in the fields, do the manual labor under the direction of a master, perform all manner of laborious tasks independently, and carry the burdens of others which altogether contributes to the healthy function of a society.
The builder of houses builds houses for the farmers growing wheat, and the farmer provides grain to make into bread. As houses became more secure, capable, and intelligently designed, the skills of an architect became more difficult to acquire, which also can be said for agriculture with the differences in expertise involving different areas of knowledge. Architecture is more of a physical science of nature, whereas agriculture is more of a spiritual science of nature. The architect must know material strengths, weaknesses, how to arange them with a sense of applied physics, and so on and so forth, all of which is much more easily conceptualized than the mastery of agriculture.
The farmer must understand the subtlties of changing seasons, the signs of weather, the nature of plantlife to do so efficiently, and also physical science to a lesser extent, such as application of water, fertilizer, and methods of accomplishing work. The point of this dichotomy is that people rely on other people to do what they do not need to know how to do themselves.
The builder may find the rituals farmers use to blend spirituality, faith, and labor strange and bizarre, but the farmer has an inexplicable understanding of how they work, why they are important, and the limits of their applications. However suspicious they may be of those mystical ways they maintain benevolent trust between each other because both abide by the laws of the king who protects them with soldiers and guards, and the king ensures that all is good in his domain to the best of his ability. If he did not, there would be no reason for the farmer or the builder to trust the king with authority to employ soldiers and guards and enforce laws, and they would not cooperate. They would continue to survive at a more primitive level of technology for their own safety, happiness, and well being.
There is an irony here about the nature of builders and farmers as it relates to the modern day. While there is still mystical applications in agriculture and there always will be, it is the builder's work that is more mystical these days. They location of not only ore, but specific ores, their refinining, and the applications of electricity, plumbing, are all more of a mysterious concept than humble farming which is very much the same as it was in ancient times. The seed still goes into the earth and comes out as wheat. But there were no lightbulbs, fiberglass, special metals with specific qualities of chemical value used for specific reasons in the way they are today because of what is needed simply to locate those metals, understand their chemical properties, and how to make the most use of them.
Let us take ease off on the balloon torch for a moment and descend a bit. While a pile of shit is of great value to a farmer, it is quite undesirable for a builder. Likewise a stone is an obstacle to a farmer and one that needs to be removed from his plot, but the builder sees shape and form within it that can be used for a higher purpose if molded by the hands of a mason.
The builder learns that a farmer has a lot of stones and wants to aquire them, and though these stones are of no use to the farmer, the builder lives in the city with a nice house and has a lot of nice things for building reliable houses for a lot of people who gave what they could in return.
The builder does not want to cheat the farmer because he wants to continue buying grain in goodwill, so he says, “My neighbor, I can always count on your harvest each year, and I want to help you if I can. Is there anything I can give you that you lack?”
The farmer is somewhat suspicious as to why the builder wants to help so charitably particularly because he is so familiar with the harsh and unforgiving nature of Nature. But he trusts the builder because he has heard of his work and his reputation is good, so he says directly, “What do you want, Mr. Christ? I believe you want to help me, but I am not so naive as to believe you will do so without wanting something in return. Tell me what that is first so I can know where this conversation is going before I go with you to make an exchange.”
The builder laughs in good spirit and says, “You caught me! It is true! You see, I heard that you have an excess of a certain type of stone from the new land you cultivated and it is of the kind that I can make great use of building houses. I would like to acquire that stone which your workers cleared out of your new field and piled near your granary, but I would not want to buy it without giving you something of equal value to you as the stone is to me.”
“Ah, so that is your game, is it?” Mr. Satan replies. “Quite lucky that you visited today, because I was just thinking of a method I could do away with that stone. Although I do not know the fullness of its application, I am aware from what I have heard from neighbors about its use, and I was going to send my steward Hermes to the city to inquire of it and see if it could be traded. However, the sun is at its peak and the day is hot, let us go inside and have some wine while we discuss the arrangements.”
Agreeing on how much fertilizer to acquire and trade for the stone is something that takes a lot more time and effort to figure if you need to account for all the different aspects of value individually at each link in the chain of trade, to include labor, transportation, and the object itself. But if there is a known value for a heap of manure and a stone as they are relevant to the king in terms of their available quantity and usefulness, and that value is a known as a number, that trade can be simplified and more time spent enjoying wine and catching up on current events.
The point is this: business, exchanges of money, and economics is a system designed for everyone’s good and it would never have been established if it wasn’t for everyone’s good. One person refusing to cooperate because it was burdensome and costly to them would refuse, and that would ruin the entire numerical system because their objects of value would not be accountable by any numerical standard, and thus standards would constantly change and be unpredictable, unreliable, inefficient, and stressful. It would be a waste of time to have 99 percent cooperation and 1 percent refusing to cooperate than to just have everyone barter individually with goods and language instead of numerical values assigned to units of value for the purpose of trade alone.
Business is not supposed to be about cheating other people when possible, manipulating the system at the expense of others and one’s own benefit, or accruing as much units of monetary value as possible. All those things, those evils, developed after the economic system of monetary trade was established. Why? Because people could not acquire money without objects of value or services of value, and there were people that simply did not have any objects of value, so money became valued because it could be used to acquire objects and services of value for people who were not land owners or artisans.
That is not yet a problem, simply a reason to find ways to distribute money so that more people could have what they need. This too is done on the principle of trust and faith that they are doing some part, some contribution, some usefulness to the society even if you do not know what it is and cannot account for it. That’s because people make hustles, side deals, odd jobs, shady deals that could damage a reputation, arrangements of a personal nature, etc. The king knows these things happen and he employs them as well, because as useful as numerical systems are, there are needs that cannot be quantified with value or are exceptions to any system, and thus require wise judgment to discern.
Thus the king’s judgment becomes a subject of systematic study, and wisdom becomes more of a known system of value. However, that is all I will write about that at this time.
As people start needing money, populations increase, and civilization prospers, the system becomes increasingly complex and difficult to maintain. Not only because of the numerous exchanges and assigned values, but because of the records that need to be stored, maintained, and remembered. So people start inventing new ways to be useful in society, but they cannot be allowed to form kindoms of their own and private economies using the same method as the king because that would destabilize the system overall and ruin it for everyone.
So another system is established in the exchange and trade of ideas. A person wants to do something, needs money, and petitions the king directly about what they want to do, how it will be useful to the king, and if they can explains why it will be good for everyone, because that saves the king time from having to consult his advisors and research everything on his own, He can just confirm the information presented.
Then with the kings approval, the treasurer disburses money from the kings treasure and there is no need for interest, because the king has no use for money other than as a unit of value. It is of no worth to him in itself, so there is no need to charge interest when the king lends as long as the money is paid back in good faith when possible.
This system works for a time, but expansion causes even more rapid increases of complexity and the next thing you know there are lines of petititoners wanting to borrow money who petition the king, and he simply does not have time for that, because his agents have reported some concerning information about the neighboring kingdoms. He cannot divert his thoughts from those matters because if war comes and his kingdom falls, the complex system of systems that has grown alarmingly quick will be rendered entirely without value, and everything will be rearranged according to another kings personal judgement with no regard for the long history and local cultural relationships because that will not be known.
The king knows this because that is simply the best thing for a king to do when conquering another kingdom. Do away with the old and replace it with the new for the purpose of efficient stability as quickly as possible. Some things will be kept but only those that are most important, and likely none of the individual affairs between individuals.
So he assigns his steward to distribute his treasury to different banks throughout the city, appoint reliable individuals to hear most petitions for him since most are very similar, and only send unique and complex ones directly to him. He wants regular reports on all the banks decisions ot keep track of them and make sure they are being as wise and he is. It is not easy being king. He’s had to endure years and years of study of math and science, learning histories of foreign nations, and going on mystical spirit journeys with the oracles and shamans of the wild. He would not be who he is or as powerful as he is without what he earned from those shamans and oracles either.
Those people are better left alone, not harassed by his subjects, and respected by him at least as an equal in dignity, just not with his authority as king or ruler of any kind. There is no problem with that because they deserve the respect and it is of no cost or trouble to render it. Also, if they get ticked off at the king, and disrespecting them as lesser creatures than a man or woman always ticks them off, they can destroy an entire kingdom singlehandedly with their mystical ways and nobody knows how they do it.
The king knows this is true because of the records that he has studied of accounts of kingdoms that rise and fall and the reasons why. Fortunately, they are also good for the kingdom in their mysterious ways and incredibly patient. Even that one time when [this particular king] was a fool and in his first years as king upset the hermit who lived in the desert at the furthest reach of his domain, he was reminded that he too is a man above all else, and it was a humbling lesson that earned his lifelong respect.
In any case, the banks start lending money, but they are also doing a service and a service that values money, so they need to get paid, and a system of interest is designed to accommodate that and maintain the integrity of the system. The king is skeptical of it, but as long as they are not abusing people, making his subjects suffer, and are wise in their judgment and willing to deviate from systematic procedure like he specified, it will be fine. He made sure before hiring all the bankers that they understood that every system has exceptions and accommodating those exceptions are most important to maintaining the overall system.
Everything worked out great for this kings kingdom and it was prosperous and peaceful all of his days with this system. He recorded his wisdom in writing before he died. As he was old, and gray in hair he was satisfied at living a good life, serving as ruler and king dutifully and well, making his subjects happy. and raising good children he could trust, he had one doubt that made him uneasy.
He was certain that his wife and stewards, along with himself, taught his sons wisdom and knowledge and all they needed to know, including the humility with which to respect all manners of power. He was also confident of the plan he left to pass power on to the subjects to rule themselves because of how complex the situation was becoming and the extent of range of their needs required more than any person could possibly be responsible for. His court, advisers, and all his subjects had learned of his proposal, and though there was some argument at first, they had plenty of time to think it through, and eventually it was unanimously agreed upon as the best way.
As a test, he had the citizens elect representatives to meet at a council and establish how it would work with his stewards and coucil. They came up with a good plan, he saw no reason to alter it, and established that his children would ensure that transition occurred according to the plan and their best judgment. It was uncertain if it would work as well as he had hoped, but that was simply the way life was with all things, and he was confident that plan would be a good one.
As he reflected on his own life during his final days, he came to believe that his greatest wisdom to pass on, was how he came to understand the way of being king, and how it was applicable to any ruler of a group. It was a job like any other, but one without value or payment. Those qualities made it more like a role in a stage play than professions such as farming or building houses. That role of king was indeed the most powerful in the kingdom by necessity, and thus needed to exercise greatest power, even that of taking lives, but that power was only as good as his subjects.
The goodness of a moral being was a lot simpler than people thought. It was directly correlated to one’s happiness, and the more good a person became in virtue, the happier they became in life. With that knowledge, he always took into account the happiness and goodness of his subjects as his own happiness and goodness. He had heard of some neighboring kingdoms thinkning of the subjects like children and he couldn’t imagine a worse idea. How horrible it would be for his subjects to be treated like children to a father! They would be crushed under the overbearing authority which they had no need for as fathers, mothers, men, and women of their own.
He concluded it best to think of all subjects as he did the neighboring kings and queens of the other realms. He certainly didn’t bow his authority to though, but he also would never make enemies of them, and wanted them to be happy and with what they needed so they would be less inclined to act out of desperation and become threatening. He was not to be pushed around by them and could show his strength and correct any instances of being disrespected by mistake or intention, but he always strove for amicable relationships and strong friendships while refraining as much as possible from knowing and being involved in the affairs of their own kingdoms that did not involve his own.
For what is a house to the master of the house if not his own manner of kingdom and domain? They were not kingdoms in service to him, but him in service to them, because fortunately for them they did not have the burdens that he did with making sure everything was working as it is supposed to. It was an imperfect metaphor, and they always were, but it served its purpose to convey the meaning before falling apart. Their lives were certainly not a game to him or to each other, because they all counted on each other to go to the field of battle should the time for war come, himself included.
Thinking like that was naturally his instinct in addition to what he was taught because it is the way kings have done it long before the time of money. He first learned that money was of no value to the king, nor to anybody without the kingdom, when he was a young boy and his father was king at the time money was first introduced to the kingdom. His father was quite stern and severe when teaching that lesson and he never forgot it. He didn’t truly understand why his father had been so severe until that one horrible time he wish he could forget…
There was a situation several decades prior when a group of people made a religous faith out of exchanging money. As acts of faith, they committed some of the most unthinkable and abhorrent crimes of pure evil by concluding they were necessary with senseless excuses that those evil acts were purposeful in service to their faith alone. They never once considered the faith of other people as relevant as their own. Those fools were completely ignorant of wisdom and good beyond material things and services.
The entire memory of that tragedy still soured his stomach, but they were taught the truth, had come to understand it, and repented their sins contritely. They even forsook their perversion of faith with solemn vows to never allow it to resurface once they realized what they were doing when true faith finally dawned on them. Unfortunately, their crimes were so grave that they could not be allowed to stay in the kingdom, so they were banished, but not without safe passage to the border of the kingdom beyond the city limits.
In any case, it is common sense for a king to think of his subject’s happiness as his own when money is not involved, and in the old days it was obvious the king do that simply to keep his own life, and not less important with money involved, just less obvious. That mindset as a ruler is what led him to understand the role of a king being as that of a servant above all other responsibilities and duties the king had.
The difference between the king as a servant and a servant in a household is that the king was a servant to a master beyond anything he could describe or explain and could only describe as the highest divine with great emphasis on that not being a person’s body, a person’s mind, a person’s spirit, any sort of material thing, or even an object of the imagination. One couldn’t even name that master with a word, let alone envision or explain it with words, but it could be taught with enough use of reason and examples.
It was like a destination that one could never arrive at, but one could see within reach at the same time, and all of life, the universe, and everything was a journey to that destination. No matter how he had tried to reach it, it was never possible and always a mistake to think he had. That too could be explained and taught so a ruler would always anticipate unseen complications.
The one thing that he was uncomfortable about in his final days before his time ended, was the lesson he learned from the hermit of the desert when he first became king. That was not something he could teach, no matter how much he tried nor did to do so. They understood those individuals as vital to the kingdom as anyone else, even the king, and that they were not to be disrespected no matter what was thought about them or they appeared to be. At least not until going to them personally and paying them a visit face to face and meeting them for yourself first, and then with the prudence and care as though the entire kingdom depended on one’s wise judgment.
There simply was not a situation for his children to see them demonstrate their ultimate power because the kingdom was good and prosperous in addition to him having learned the lesson he did. There were countless times things could have gone wrong if he did not know what he knew, but they never did go wrong because he stopped them well ahead of time and nobody even noticed that there could have been disaster if one small mistake on those occasions had been allowed out of convenience and ease for fools and sluggards.
They would learn though, because he explained those subtleties and their importance because of consequences that would undoubtedly manifest much later, such as ten years or more. Then if those consequences should occur in that way, they would be catastrophic and extremely destructive to the kingdom. They understood the practicality of that knowledge, but not yet the wisdom. For that they simply needed to confront such a situation themselves, make a mistake, have it corrected, and be humbled when it happens. He was confident that if the should be in such a situation they would have the wisdom to be humble, because they were taught the ways of kings, which are wisdom, virtue, and compassion, and they knew being humbled was a great honor.
He had never fully felt in control of life, the future, or anything really, but he had always felt capable to do what needed to be done, and that had proven enough. That was how he felt the moment he died in the company of his beloved wife, children, and closest friends. Whatever may be in store, if anything, such as the judgment of souls some said existed, he felt capable and confident to confront it no matter what end may come.
What assured him with confidence was like that which he would have drawn in while leading his kingdom roaring across an empty field. Emptiness as quiet as the grave without the thunder of hooves and warrior courage racing headlong into battle and shaking the earth underneath. With death breathing upon their backs and overtaking them with the plunging force of steel and men colliding at the line of battle where blood is spilt and wars are ended in those glory days before he met his wife. It was the unfathomable love he felt for the individuals present magnified by that which he felt for all of creation and life itself returning to him and going out again with each breath the moment he took his last.