Saturday, November 15, 2014

Money Wisdom #309

Money... ....reconstitutes the social order as an order of interdependence, desire, and credit, it is that which is the supreme principle of reality. In a market society, there is no higher aim than making money, for money is the reality principle. Within a market society there is an unlimited demand for profits. This power of realization and this demand are purely social forces, subsisting outside the human will in society itself. It is an impersonal and abstract force, beyond the pleasure principle. Indeed, as the means of access to pleasure, the means of making desire effective, money must be acquired through profits or hoarding. One passes through that which has no intrinsic desirability - the acquisition of money - to gain access to pleasure. This is the profound link between capitalism and the structure of the Oedipus complex.

Philip Goodchild Theology of Money (2009) p.62