If the world fails to recover from this global financial crisis, and money ceases to be
an option; the human instinct to survive will deliver us from our dilemma.
Cooperation will be the only way to maintain and improve our living standard. And
the survival instinct will ensure that most people gladly cooperate with those they
would have previously regarded as competition, or even as an enemy.
An economic disaster of this nature thus has the potential for many political
benefits, encouraging domestic and international peace and sharing. The present
global financial crisis may indicate that the world we live in today has lost stability
and is on the brink of changing. Therefore, this crisis might be necessary to
awaken us to the potential of tomorrow.
Just because money has been making the world go round for thousands of years
doesn't mean money will be the way of the world forever. We should start looking
for an alternative system to preserve, and increase, standards of living now in
case we need it tomorrow (I imagine politicians are the ones with the resources
and organizational ability needed to implement such a system). This scheme
should not use any form of monetary organisation nor be based on gold, silver etc.
“Until the 1920s, money was backed by gold in many countries (the gold
standard): a pound note or dollar bill could be exchanged for a given amount of
gold. In the absence of general confidence that it will persist, the gold standard
loses its advantages ... and it seems unlikely that the gold standard will ever be
restored. Money is now increasingly not in tangible form but consists of credit-
transfer, where one account is reduced (debited) and another increased (credited)
by the same amount electronically. (from Penguin Encyclopedia, 2006 – “money”
and “gold standard” articles)
It should, idealistic and naive as it appears at first, be based on mutual
cooperation and the goal of ushering in a paradise on earth. We can say there can
never be paradise on earth; but the human instinct to survive is much stronger
than our tendency for other types of self-interest, and greed, and to not cooperate
with each other.
