FROM Money: Fact and Fiction by J. D. Malan (1971):

ONCE UPON A TIME there lived a good King who ruled over a small country where the people were poor but honest and hard working. The King was worried about the poverty which was almost universal throughout the land, and spent almost all his time deep in thought trying to find ways to help his people. Most of his subjects, however, did not worry about their hard life, and found enjoyment in discussing amongst themselves their ideas of dream worlds where life would be comfortable and luxurious. But they knew they were only dreams, and they returned to their labours without complaint.

The King, however, being a more serious man, was upset by their complacency and sought the advice of his Oracle, who was also a very cunning man. The Oracle told the King that his subjects should be prevented from talking about their dream worlds. This he undertook to do if the King proclaimed that no person could use words which were not authorized by the Oracle, who would have sole control over the issue of new words. So as not to be too hard on the people, the King insisted, as a condition of the agreement, that any word which described anything the people already possessed would be free for all to use. And so the people were able to see that their King was indeed a good and kind man, and life went on much as before even though they were rather restricted in their dream talks.

Years passed, until many generations later there was nobody who knew why the Oracle was the only person who could issue new words, but it was not very important and no one bothered to work it out. Then one day a very clever man invented a new tool to make life on the farms easier, and he dutifully asked the Oracle for a new word to describe it. This began to happen more and more often as the people learned new skills and discovered new materials, and soon the Oracle began to demand a share of each new invention every time he issued a new word.

Many generations passed and eventually the Oracle found himself doing nothing except issue new words, and as each generation of Oracles took over from the previous one, the position of Chief Oracle came to be the richest and most powerful in the land — even more so than the King. Before long the Oracle realized that no new invention could be used without his words, and he began to demand bigger and bigger shares as his price for each new word. But still the inventions appeared faster than the Oracle could be persuaded to create the new words, and all over the land there were machines, and men waiting to use them who could do nothing until the Oracle produced the new words they needed to be able to learn the new skills.

And while men worked hard and produced many wonderful things which even their distant ancestors had never dreamed of, it became the hardest task of all to get enough new words to enable all these new things to be used, and many men spent all their time trying to find ways of increasing the output of new words from the Oracle’s now very large and powerful organization.

But in spite of all the wonderful things the people invented and all the skill and knowledge they had acquired, not one person ever thought to challenge the Oracle’s right to the monopoly over the issue of new words. Some people even thought the wonderful but idle machines were the cause of their troubles, and seriously suggested they should be destroyed. Nobody knows the end of this strange story because this small and very peaceful country completely disappeared without a trace a long time ago — which is not surprising because it is hard to see how such stupid people could ever be expected to live happily ever after, which, as we all know, is the traditional ending of every fairy tale.

But is this story so far fetched? Let us look at the situation just before this unhappy country of our story disappeared. The people had in their hands everything they needed for a comfortable and happy life, but refused to believe they could use them without new words — mere symbols — which their Oracle kept in short supply. Obviously a ridiculous situation which could only happen in a fairy story. Is it?

Look around our own, and very real, world today. We have an almost limitless technology and an industrial complex capable of mass production of everything we need. We have an array of facilities such as roads, airways, radio, television and countless others which should make our lives happy and comfortable — but we refuse to make proper use of them because some very worried but probably kind hearted ruler a long time ago gave away the people’s rights to the simplest and most wonderful system of symbols ever invented — MONEY.

Money — quite useless on its own but the most flexible symbol system of all time — is the only element in our modern world which is continuously and almost universally in short supply? Why is this ridiculous situation permitted to continue? Why indeed? Because we still cannot see that our wonderful symbol we call money is not the property of the Oracle — sorry, banking system — but belongs to the people who created the things it represents and should be controlled by them for their own benefit.

Can you imagine a family existing on meagre rations because they could not think of the names of the many sumptuous foods in their cupboards? Of course not. Then look at the real world around you and you will see that we are doing just that, for no better reason than our slavish insistence on placing more importance on the symbol than the real things.

[cont.]

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