John Brodix Merryman Jr.
2 min readJul 4, 2024

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I think we need to, first and foremost, reconsider what is the nature of money in the first place.

Given we are linear, goal oriented creatures in this cyclical, circular, reciprocal, feedback generated reality, people view money as signal save and store, while markets need it to circulate. Consequently Econ 101 refers to it as both medium of exchange and store of value. As well as price setting mechanism.

Consider that in your body, blood is the medium, while fat, as well as bone and muscle, are store.

Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store. If we treated roads like we treat money, everything would be paved over and we would be fighting over our lots.

The reality is that you own money like you own the section of road you are on, or the air and water flowing through your body..It's not your picture on it, you don't hold the copyrights and are not responsible for its value, like a personal check.

The fact is that it is a public contract, a networking mechanism, that enables economies to work, not a commodity to mine from them.

To store the asset side of the ledger, there has to be a debt to back it. Consequently the secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.

The only effective way for societies to save collectively is not as masses of individual stores, but as the stronger communities, infrastructure, resources, environments, etc. necessary for a healthy and functional society to survive.

If you think through the evolution of humanity, the basis of a functional system is collective responsibility, with rights as reward. We have gone from relatively small tribal units to nations of millions of people in a scant 3000 years and while the initial founding document of Western civilization, the Ten Commandments, was about responsibility, by the time we got around to the US Constitution, it was more about rights, given the irresponsible were likely to go hungry.

When rights are ordained and responsibility is optional, society is necrotic. Cultural Ebola virus.

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John Brodix Merryman Jr.
John Brodix Merryman Jr.

Written by John Brodix Merryman Jr.

Having an affair with life. It's complicated.

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