Did you ever throw money away? I mean on purpose. Prof. Jem Bendell did it with a 20 Euro bill on his TED Talk in 2011. It was just 20 Euros, and I thought: This is super stupid! Today, after reading Tom Sedlacek, Götz Werner and Karl Marx, I have completely changed my mind on money. But still I haven’t thrown money away yet, but I’m working on that.
Money makes the world go round. True, right? I never understood, how a company can take over another company, even if they don’t want to. They call it hostile take-over. Or think about the worst jobs ever. The nigerian diggers (for our iPhone batteries) or the dirtiest job ever: prostitution. This is all happening, because of money.
Of course, money also as a tool can simplify a lot of things. BrandEins author Wolf Lotter once wrote that the only reason, why money had that big success, is because of the lack of one single machine, which everybody of us today has in his home, but back then – in barter eras (when people used to exchange shoes for beef and soap for clothes and so on) – simply didn’t exist: the fridge. Try to exchange fish or meat in a small village. People will start to say: Well, I will build you a house, but if you pay me with 10 sheep heads (Capitas), I won’t be able to eat their meat all before it spoils. So why don’t you just write me a credit note for 10 heads (capita=head), so you don’t forget. This was the beginning of capitalism and money (notes). Well, everybody today has a fridge now.
There are a few crazy heads like Mark Boyle – the so called the moneyless man (who lives in the forest) or the berlin Foodsharing activist Rafaell Fellmer who refuses to use money (this man lives from things, people donate). And there is another guy called Von Jorck Spiegel Online wrote about recently. A talented MBA graduate with an excellent exam, who simply doesn’t want to spend more than ten hours per week on money jobs. He lives with 500 Euros per month and says, he feels free. No fridge, no cheese (too expensive). Well, Rafael Fellmer cofounded a foodsharing platform and made a cooperation with organic supermarkets to save food from garbage. In Germany obviously nobody really seriosly has to spend money on food. 50% are thrown away, Rafael says.
To be honest, It’s weither Von Jorck, nor Mark Boyle or Rafael Fellmer, who are gone crazy. It’s us, who think, that we have to live a certain lifestyle to become happy. I try not to buy new things (sometimes I wonder, if people think I am a homeless when they see me with my old black parker, that I once bought at Cheap monday). My wife doesn’t like all these thoughts that I have on money. And sometimes I feel like Neo in Matrix. I chose the red pill, and decided to see the truth behind money. I always thought it can bring wealth to all people. But it just brings wealth to a certain much smaller part of this world. Money is never win-win. If you win, someone lost. It’s a game based on exploitation. And I don’t want to be part of it. Wish I didn’t have taken the truth pill. I wish I still believe that all I have to do to be happy, is to work hard in a company, making money, buying a house, spending nice holiday trips at the beach for vacation and trying to make as much as many people work for me (of course paying them as little as possible or even nothing). I can’t help it. I don’t like my dependancy on money. If I hadn’t a ten weeks old baby and a wonderful wife, I would move into a tiny house on wheels (to get rid of mortgage) and start to help people I like and support companies I adore (startnext.de, wikimedia). I even would collect money for our government (I heard they are in dept up to the ears: 2.072.000.000.000 (sic!) Euro in 2012). Can someone tell me the official donation bank account? Probably it’s not possible to donate money for the country. Imagine how our taxmen would react, if you say, well I would love to pay more than 19%, let’s say 21%, are you okay with that? If you look at our debt crisis you must realize, that donating money to the government is almost the same as throwing money away.
Is there a chance to throw money away and make sense at the same time? Donate money to homeless? To cancer curing companies? To refugees? I recently gave 100 Euros to the Awesome Foundation. This is really an awesome foundation. Well, the truth is, the more you try to make sense with money, the more you make people dependent on it. I think it’s better to inspire people how to get happy with less money, with a smaller apartment, with less meat, less alcohol, less sugar, less shopping, less this and that. And more living, more repairing and caring, more knowing – the neighbors, the tools, the value of lifetime. It’s too romantic to believe that a single person like me or Prof Jem Bendell can convince the masses to throw money away. But what really helps is to decrease the things you do for money. If you help someone with something, let’s say translating a text, helping out by creating ideas for a new business or babysitting, and when it comes to the point, that they ask you, how much this service would cost. I started to answer: Well, actually I am priceless. I mean, it’s not really the same as burning down a 20 euro bill, but you will see: It makes a big difference. And it might be the beginning of a society, which starts to count on people, not on money.