Is this perhaps a point about power and capital: that capital is after
all only money - you can't eat it - or book entries which are even less
useful - in fact: it is because people believe in these things, the
significance of money or book entries, that others are continually able
to exercise the 'power' i.e. the control over people that these signs
give them. so in the end, even capital is the accumulation of power
exercised by all those people who concur in the great myth. Over
generations, over centuries, or as with film stars, over 10 minutes.
Absurd as it seems, if people stopped rendering homage to coinage, it
would cease to be a medium of exchange: we might get back to the baked
bean standard I suppose, or the cabbage or shell millionaire.
Nesta
all only money - you can't eat it - or book entries which are even less
useful - in fact: it is because people believe in these things, the
significance of money or book entries, that others are continually able
to exercise the 'power' i.e. the control over people that these signs
give them. so in the end, even capital is the accumulation of power
exercised by all those people who concur in the great myth. Over
generations, over centuries, or as with film stars, over 10 minutes.
Absurd as it seems, if people stopped rendering homage to coinage, it
would cease to be a medium of exchange: we might get back to the baked
bean standard I suppose, or the cabbage or shell millionaire.
Nesta