Burning Money
Last week a video began circulating around the web that shows several people wearing balaclavas walking calmly into a corner store in Greece. With a lookout man stationed at the door, the camera follows half the group through the aisles as groceries are stuffed into backpacks. Our attention is then directed to the front where the remainder of the group is smashing open the cash machines. Grabbing handfuls of money, the gang makes an orderly exit amid the shrill call of the lookout's whistle.
If we were to pause the video at this point, one could dismiss their actions as the work of petty criminals. And the video would hold no more importance than the surveillance clips of thieves sticking up gas station attendants. Perhaps a few of us would show some sympathy and meekly excuse their actions by pointing out that no one was harmed or threatened and that since they only stole food and money, they must be poor and hungry. In any case, we would be justified in shrugging our shoulders in indifference to another symptom of the latent violence of our society. Resuming the tape, however, melts all this away as petty criminals become bold revolutionaries.
Now outside the store, the camera turns to watch as a gloved hand holds the bundle of cash that was expropriated moments ago. The group stops and cheers as the money is set on fire. As the lucre bursts into flames and is dropped on the pavement, the film ends abruptly. It is this final act, the desecration and destruction of money, that is a shocking political act worthy of emulation.
Money is sacred in our capitalist society. And despite a lifetime of passing it around, very few of us have ever thought to destroy the lucre in our hands. We spend our lives working to earn it, and when we are feeling generous we donate it or if we are feeling frugal we save it. But we never flush it down the toilet or burn it or do anything else that would take it out of circulation. And even the thought of doing so can provoke anxiety.
To break the allegiance of the people to idolatry, Moses destroyed the golden calf, Jesus chased away the money lenders and Muhammad smashed the 360 false gods in the Kaaba. Today the paper bills we pass among us have become our idols and Mammon our god. To smash consumerism, we must do more than simply circulate our money to "green" or local businesses. We must also liberate ourselves from the religion of capital and the belief that money is sacred and can solve all problems.
Here is a revolutionary practice everyone should try: Take a bill from your wallet, think of all the things you could buy and then calmly set it on fire. Smell the burning paper, pay attention to your emotions and meditate on where money goes when it is destroyed.
Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters. He lives in Berkeley, CA and is writing a book about the future of activism. www.micahmwhite.com or micah (at) adbusters.org
102 comments on the article “Burning Money”
Displaying 71 - 80 of 102
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Kimbro
BURN IT ALL ! DO AWAY WITH ITS EXISTENCE!
IF MONEY WERE TO NO LONGER EXSIST THERE WOULD BE NO MORE DEBTS OWED.
MAN WOULD LIVE IN COMMON
MONEY IS AN INVENTED REALITY THAT ONLY CAUSES SELF-DESTRUCTION.
MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL PROBLEMS.
DESTROY THE DESTROYER!
Kimbro
BURN IT ALL ! DO AWAY WITH ITS EXISTENCE!
IF MONEY WERE TO NO LONGER EXSIST THERE WOULD BE NO MORE DEBTS OWED.
MAN WOULD LIVE IN COMMON
MONEY IS AN INVENTED REALITY THAT ONLY CAUSES SELF-DESTRUCTION.
MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL PROBLEMS.
DESTROY THE DESTROYER!
ZR ART
Money doesn't talk it swears..... Bob Dylan
ZR ART
Money doesn't talk it swears..... Bob Dylan
Jap Hastings
Wouldn't it be better to donate the money, rather than burning it? Or does that acknowledge the power of money and support the state systems across the world that largely caused global poverty (colonialism, imperialism, globalization)? I don't yet have an answer for this. Chime in if you do.
Jap Hastings
Wouldn't it be better to donate the money, rather than burning it? Or does that acknowledge the power of money and support the state systems across the world that largely caused global poverty (colonialism, imperialism, globalization)? I don't yet have an answer for this. Chime in if you do.
Luke G. Hulm
Think forward, imagine we get through the credit crunch, through the even more demanding environmental crunch. Think 50 years ahead, think 100... there will be a time that comes if humanity continues to evolve whereby money becomes irrelevant.
If the majority of people on earth were spiritually mature money would be irrelevant. If you are spiritually mature you only desire as much as you need, you are not ruled by unwholesome desires for more, more, MORE!
When you are spiritually aware your instinct is to give, to share, to offer before taking.. in this way there is enough for all.
If you are religious you may understand this is part of the message of your religion.
That time will come, think about it, if this was never to come to pass, if our destiny was not to progress, to change for the better what point drawing another breathe?
This is the way it will be, I salute these forward thinkers, yes in the present world their act is futile and the money could perhaps be put to better use feeding the hungry, but to dream is important and to keep the dream alive more important still.
Luke G. Hulm
Think forward, imagine we get through the credit crunch, through the even more demanding environmental crunch. Think 50 years ahead, think 100... there will be a time that comes if humanity continues to evolve whereby money becomes irrelevant.
If the majority of people on earth were spiritually mature money would be irrelevant. If you are spiritually mature you only desire as much as you need, you are not ruled by unwholesome desires for more, more, MORE!
When you are spiritually aware your instinct is to give, to share, to offer before taking.. in this way there is enough for all.
If you are religious you may understand this is part of the message of your religion.
That time will come, think about it, if this was never to come to pass, if our destiny was not to progress, to change for the better what point drawing another breathe?
This is the way it will be, I salute these forward thinkers, yes in the present world their act is futile and the money could perhaps be put to better use feeding the hungry, but to dream is important and to keep the dream alive more important still.
Anonymous
Ok so I've been reading through this topic and those of you that say we need to destroy the capitalist system to move on need to consider other variables. Before I jump into the meat and potatoes of my arguement I must first preface it by a little bit of a character statement, though I know I'll still get your same route reply of I'm just a capitalist.
So to begin with I view myself as a moderate. Extremism to either end of the spectrum when it comes to policy creation, philosophical thought and resource management is insane. Part of being a human being is that we are able to critically think about a situation. We can look at a problem review all relevant information and then use that to make the best choice for a situation. By prescribing yourself to one cliche, whether it be republican, democrat, capitalist, socialist or what have you limits you to that small predefined box. Personally I will never do that because in many situations capitalism can be good while on the same can so can socialism. A perfect example of this is when I have money and my friends or roommates don't I help them out, when the situation is reversed they do the same for me. We are working through a problem in a socialist fashion even though we are still "prescribing" to capitalism through the use of money.
Now to move onto actually addressing the topic of discussion. I have no problem with burning a 1 dollar bill, even a five or twenty. It doesn't make me question my god or sanity all it does is make me think about all the money that I owe for my student loans. Beyond that I could care less about burning it, but it is actually useful for something. So let's say that we get ride of all money and start bartering. Well now we have a problem because there are so many human beings across the face of an inhospitable earth that doesn't care if we living a socialist way or not. Hurricanes will still come, tornados will still destroy houses, earthquakes will still shatter the earth.
Now without any money there's no way to reimburse those who can make complex materials such as weatherproofed windows, earthquake tolerant building materials, or even the maintaining of the fabulous interwebs that allows you to discuss this topic with others. So then we're in a situation were we are at the mercy of mother nature, and she is a cold vindictive mistress, even to animals.
So let's say that we could deal with that in a bartering system by some way or another. We are still faced with the issue that our population is expanding at a rate that this world cannot maintain. In order to figure out how to move further out into the universe, as a highly evolved and advanced society should, we need to be able to put resources into the development of these technologies. Without any way to trade something of equal value for such an expensive and complicated technology we are doomed to overgrow the planet, turn it into a barren landscape and then die of starvation.
Or then let's talk about just the situations that we have globally right now. Saying oh well money is the route of all the problems and evil is one thing. It's easy to be the guy who stands there and says "He guys we have a problem." What's hard is being the one that proposes a solution, which thus far I have seen none of you do. So since there isn't a solution that I can assume besides the destruction of money I'll assume that that is the one and only solution.
So now we are faced with a massive oil spill, increasing pollution, increasing population and oh yes germs that are becoming immune to the affects of penicillin. All of these problems are ones that will take research, development and high tech equipment in order to solve. Without a way to fund such activities they do not happen. You can't tell a researcher "Well look I know that each piece of complicated machinery you uses has a value assigned to it, but that assumption of value is evil so you're just going to have to use this piece of paper, these chemicals that you can find naturally and then just release what you think is a solution to the problem and hope to god that it doesn't destroy the ocean, create an untreatable plague or generally mess up the earth. Sorry but testing and trials have a monetary cost attributed to them too so you're just not going to be able to do that."
Any sane person would look at you like you're mad. Which is exactly the point of the argument that I'm making. As human beings we are gifted with the ability to logically think over a situation and decide the best course of action. By lashing out and making a statement all you're doing is letting your emotions get the best of you which automatically ruins any attempt at critical thinking. Let's see some moderation people, don't be quick to label yourself because that's what the pig wants you to do. There is a reason that the pig's worse enemy in any situation anywhere is an independent who refuses to agree with a cliche form of thought. Whether it be prescribing to Adbuster's agenda or Fox news'.
Anonymous
Ok so I've been reading through this topic and those of you that say we need to destroy the capitalist system to move on need to consider other variables. Before I jump into the meat and potatoes of my arguement I must first preface it by a little bit of a character statement, though I know I'll still get your same route reply of I'm just a capitalist.
So to begin with I view myself as a moderate. Extremism to either end of the spectrum when it comes to policy creation, philosophical thought and resource management is insane. Part of being a human being is that we are able to critically think about a situation. We can look at a problem review all relevant information and then use that to make the best choice for a situation. By prescribing yourself to one cliche, whether it be republican, democrat, capitalist, socialist or what have you limits you to that small predefined box. Personally I will never do that because in many situations capitalism can be good while on the same can so can socialism. A perfect example of this is when I have money and my friends or roommates don't I help them out, when the situation is reversed they do the same for me. We are working through a problem in a socialist fashion even though we are still "prescribing" to capitalism through the use of money.
Now to move onto actually addressing the topic of discussion. I have no problem with burning a 1 dollar bill, even a five or twenty. It doesn't make me question my god or sanity all it does is make me think about all the money that I owe for my student loans. Beyond that I could care less about burning it, but it is actually useful for something. So let's say that we get ride of all money and start bartering. Well now we have a problem because there are so many human beings across the face of an inhospitable earth that doesn't care if we living a socialist way or not. Hurricanes will still come, tornados will still destroy houses, earthquakes will still shatter the earth.
Now without any money there's no way to reimburse those who can make complex materials such as weatherproofed windows, earthquake tolerant building materials, or even the maintaining of the fabulous interwebs that allows you to discuss this topic with others. So then we're in a situation were we are at the mercy of mother nature, and she is a cold vindictive mistress, even to animals.
So let's say that we could deal with that in a bartering system by some way or another. We are still faced with the issue that our population is expanding at a rate that this world cannot maintain. In order to figure out how to move further out into the universe, as a highly evolved and advanced society should, we need to be able to put resources into the development of these technologies. Without any way to trade something of equal value for such an expensive and complicated technology we are doomed to overgrow the planet, turn it into a barren landscape and then die of starvation.
Or then let's talk about just the situations that we have globally right now. Saying oh well money is the route of all the problems and evil is one thing. It's easy to be the guy who stands there and says "He guys we have a problem." What's hard is being the one that proposes a solution, which thus far I have seen none of you do. So since there isn't a solution that I can assume besides the destruction of money I'll assume that that is the one and only solution.
So now we are faced with a massive oil spill, increasing pollution, increasing population and oh yes germs that are becoming immune to the affects of penicillin. All of these problems are ones that will take research, development and high tech equipment in order to solve. Without a way to fund such activities they do not happen. You can't tell a researcher "Well look I know that each piece of complicated machinery you uses has a value assigned to it, but that assumption of value is evil so you're just going to have to use this piece of paper, these chemicals that you can find naturally and then just release what you think is a solution to the problem and hope to god that it doesn't destroy the ocean, create an untreatable plague or generally mess up the earth. Sorry but testing and trials have a monetary cost attributed to them too so you're just not going to be able to do that."
Any sane person would look at you like you're mad. Which is exactly the point of the argument that I'm making. As human beings we are gifted with the ability to logically think over a situation and decide the best course of action. By lashing out and making a statement all you're doing is letting your emotions get the best of you which automatically ruins any attempt at critical thinking. Let's see some moderation people, don't be quick to label yourself because that's what the pig wants you to do. There is a reason that the pig's worse enemy in any situation anywhere is an independent who refuses to agree with a cliche form of thought. Whether it be prescribing to Adbuster's agenda or Fox news'.
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