You believe my lie, I'll believe yours

I’ve been thinking a lot about money lately. It’s not unusual considering that I am temping at a multinational stock broking firm.

An excellent book I recently read (An Introduction to Postmodernism) defines the workings of the modern economic system as consensual mutual deceit. Shares are offered by companies to support their growth and development, but are bought and sold by people who only care about a company’s wellbeing in terms of how it impacts on their profits. In other words, it is a system where people support other people for the sole purpose of supporting themselves.

“How can these monsters so recklessly gorge and sustain evil empire!” the indignant cry. But is this culture of fraud limited only to the financial sector?

Let’s say you are hungry, so you gallivant off to the supermarket to acquire some soup. Browsing the stocky isles, you spot a can of crème de cheval and hastily make your way to the checkout, clutching it wearily to your breast. The checkout operator, Hannibal, flashes a toothy smile and, clenching the can in his clammy hand, swipes it swiftly twixt the light and the steel. You pay with ten minutes of your life in the form of a few small bits of metal, and hail the bus with the advertisement for the new Ralph Fiennes movie back to your home.

Your purchase supports the soup company and Mr. Hannibal, but you do not buy the soup for that reason. You are only driven by a desire to sate your own hunger. Mr. Hannibal smiles at you, not because he likes you, but because his supervisor told him to and he wants to keep his job so that he too can buy the soup of his dreams. The supermarket monitors your purchase so it can stock more of what you want to make you happier, and even though you know the supermarket doesn’t really care about your happiness, you respond as if they do if it gets you more of what you want. The bus driver drives you where you want to go because it’s in his contract to do so, and you consent to the requirements of the bus because you can’t ride it if you don’t. The advertisers promote Ralph Fiennes because they were paid to, and Ralph Fiennes pretends to be somebody else to entertain you despite the fact that he doesn’t even know you are watching, and you consent to the deception in order to be entertained.

This is what you get when you mess with,
Ian