When everything is subject to money, then the scarcity of money makes everything scarce, including the basis of human life and happiness. Such is the life of the slave—one whose actions are compelled by threat to survival. Perhaps the deepest indication of our slavery is the monetization of time.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that when money governs all aspects of life, it leads to a scarcity mentality that undermines true happiness and freedom.
Charles Eisenstein critiques the overwhelming influence of money on human existence, arguing that the obsession with monetary value creates an artificial scarcity that affects not just material wealth but also fundamental human needs and happiness. He emphasizes that this monetization turns people into 'slaves' of the economy, where their actions and choices are dictated by financial pressures rather than genuine desires, ultimately suggesting that true freedom is found outside the constraints of financial limitations.
In practice
In discussions about the impact of capitalism on personal well-being.
It is quite normal to fear what one most desires. We desire to transcend the Story of the World that has come to enslave us, that indeed is killing the planet. We fear what the end of that story will bring: the demise of much that is familiar.Fear it or not, it is happening already.
There is a vast territory between what we're trying to leave behind, and where we want to go - and we don't have any maps for that territory.
The cynic thinks that he is being practical and that the hopeful person is not. It is actually the other way around. Cynicism is paralyzing, while the naïve person tries what the cynic says is impossible and sometimes succeeds.
The gift economy represents a shift from consumption to contribution, transaction to trust, scarcity to abundance and isolation to community.
Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.
Are the problems of the world caused by bad people who need to be crushed? Or do people do bad things when they are in a certain situation? If it is the latter, then we can go around crushing the villains for another thousand years and nothing will change.
For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. If two or three persons should come with a high spiritual aim and with great powers, the world would fall into their hands like a ripe peach.
Everything might scatter. You might be right. I suppose it's something we can't easily get away from. People need to feel they belong. To a nation, to a race. Otherwise, who knows what might happen? This civilisation of ours, perhaps it'll just collapse. And everything scatter, as you put it.
I think all cats are wild. They only act tame if there´s a saucer of milk in it for them.
When we adopt—and when we encourage a culture of adoption in our churches and communities—we’re picturing something that’s true about our God. We, like Jesus, see what our Father is doing and do likewise (John 5:19). And what our Father is doing, it turns out, is fighting for orphans, making them sons and daughters.
Anyone afraid of what he thinks television does to the world is probably just afraid of the world.
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