WE KNOW IT ALL!!!
By Mauro Marturano
As you may have figured out (???😂), the first reason, the first explanation I give for the past, the present and the future lies in the way monetary dynamics have developed in different countries.
In countries where monetary dynamics have been positive, meaning where the currency of that country, or that part of the world, has behaved well — compared with other currencies and, above all, compared with serious things, such as gold (against which they have all lost) — the general illusion has been extremely high.
A bunch of howling zombies.
In countries where, on the other hand, monetary dynamics have been negative, meaning where the currency of that country, or that part of the world, has performed poorly compared with other currencies, the general illusion has been much weaker. And this has brought people much closer to the law of the jungle, both in their behavior and in their perceptions.
One day, to introduce the way money is explained in the movie Margin Call — “pieces of paper that keep us from killing each other over a piece of bread” — I talked about a world in which money did not exist, namely the exact opposite of the world we are living in.
In that world, a person who knew how to make chairs would risk being robbed every day when they went into the woods to look for the wood needed to make them.
They could be robbed by someone who did not possess those skills, by someone who knew how to do nothing, by someone who did not want to do anything, or by someone who could not do anything.
It was an example at the opposite extreme, intended to make people think about the fact that barter, in and of itself, was by no means a solution to all problems.
Quite the opposite.
Our part of the world is very, very, very far from the example I have just described.
It is a part of the world in which, in every word, every line of reasoning, every conversation — for those who (???😁) have the desire and the cognitive ability to understand life — you can perceive an extraordinary underlying illusion.
I wonder what an African citizen would think if they heard us talking about pensions, the 110% tax credit for renovating buildings, public services, queues hundreds of meters long to buy the latest iPhone, 30-year bonds, or even simply what it means to insure a car.
Try to imagine a world in which that possibility does not exist.
And, more generally, try to imagine what it means to live in a world where it is simply taken for granted that “the State has to protect us.”
Where I am now, in the luxurious Middle East, the working part of the population — I call it that because I cannot call it anything else, you know what I mean! 😂 — while living in, and above all seeing, the extreme luxury around it, is already much, much closer to the world of the chair maker.
Although the strong level of control that exists here prevents this proximity from turning into the law of the jungle in any way.
The place where I am is therefore an intermediate world between the perfect and total illusion of our societies and the total absence of illusion in the world of the chair maker.
Or in many parts of the real world.
Where, obviously, there are no pensions.
Where the roads are 1,267 times worse than our much-maligned Salerno–Reggio Calabria highway.
Where people literally hang from trains to get to work for 3 dollars a day.
Where there are no healthcare services and, often, not even proper sanitation.
Etc., etc.
It is a world — ours — of people who think they know everything while, in reality, they understand nothing.
And they talk about nothing.
And they think about nothing.
And they discuss nothing.
Every single day.
And they do not even know... how or why we are more fortunate than others.
Without having any particular merit.