Chapter 20 in the serialisation of the book 'Insurrection' 4th book in the 'Corpalism' series

20

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
H. L. Mencken

The Preacher strode onto the stage. He appeared to be extremely agitated, rubbing his hands and pulling at his hair. Barry was rubbing his hands as well although for entirely different reasons; the theatre was now full, even with people standing in the aisles.

There was a buzz of anticipation.

"I can't stand it any longer!" The voice was a scream. "The insanity of it all, it's tearing into my brain," he fell to his knees, "it's totally insane yet I seem to be the only one who sees it, how can that be?" Barry was imagining this on the big screen, a real crowd pleaser.

"'Cause you're a nutter," yelled someone from the back, clearly not a follower, just there for the spectacle. He was hushed by several people close to him and subsided quickly.

"You say that!" said the Preacher latching onto the comment, standing up, arms held high, "but am I? Am I the insane one? Think on it for a moment. Here, let me help you," he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and held it up, "If you can't quite see what this is it's a ten pound note. All of you, if you have paper currency get it out of your wallets or your purses, please, do it now, for me."

He waited whilst most of the audience did as he bid, though a few of them, Barry noted, studiously ignored the entreaty.

"Okay, let's see what we have here, look what it says at the top, 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ten pounds'," he was now striding around the stage, "that's what it says, I promise to pay the bearer ten pounds." He stopped in his tracks and asked, "But tens pounds of what?"

"Money, you idiot," yelled the same heckler. There was a bit of a scuffle as those nearest turned on him. It was all over in a moment and peace was restored.

"Money?" questioned the Preacher, "What is money? I know what gold is, I know what silver is and I know what diamonds are. But what exactly is money?"

"It's how we value things," said someone in the front row, not barracking, more conversational, "to make exchange easy."

"Exactly," said the Preacher, nodding appreciatively, "it's sole function is to make exchange of products simpler, so you don't go away with half a chicken or something."

He left a pause, allowing them to think on it, then said, "But tell me, if it's only a means of exchange how did the rich manage to buy the world with it?"

There was a general silence as people considered his words.

"We all know that 97% of the money in the world doesn't exist and that's thanks to Fractional Reserve Banking, or should I say fictional reserve banking."

He grinned at his own joke, his smile partly hidden by his hair, "Money is no longer attached to the Gold Standard, therefore, it isn't based on anything. So when it says, 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand ten pounds,' I have to ask, ten pounds of what?"
Silence.

"The world is owned by the rich shareholder, the rich superstar, the rich industrialist, the rich aristocracy."
He was now marching around the stage, "It doesn't matter who or what they are, if they're rich then they own a part of the world, but they only own it because they've got lots of money. Which means they own part of the 97% of the world’s fictional money, the pretend money that only exists on a computer." He stopped abruptly and stared out at the audience, "Which means that if they cashed in their fictional nonexistent money they'd get something like this ten pound note offering to pay the bearer the sum of ten pounds of nothing." He held the note aloft, "Which means the rich have managed to buy the entire world with paper nothing that has a value of nothing and we've let them do it."

Now he had their attention. Some were visibly struggling to rationalise the process but his words had made immediate sense to some others.

"We even support them in the notion because we have bought into the idea that through home ownership we too can own a small part of the world.
Not only that, but we believe that by investing in a house and spending massive sums on home improvements we can increase our money and buy a better house and that by this simple process we too can become wealthy, by this process we can escalate ourselves up some social ladder of prosperity."

There were several nods in the audience.

"You nod but do you really understand?" he pressed. "By buying into the process, by accepting our pitiful little houses as some sort of investment in this crazy system we have not only supported the concept that the rich can buy the world with valueless paper but we have also accepted our own lowly place in the system."

Several blank faces greeted his final words.

"They have bought the world with the promise to pay nothing to anyone. We have accepted this and our place because they have told us that we too can own something if we play by the rules. But those rules are designed to keep us on the lowest rung of this fictional ladder and we tolerate this, worse, because we're all snobs, we've propagated the idea and now we all believe it is imperative for us to get onto the property ladder."

He waited for their response but there was none beyond uncomfortable shuffling and throat clearing.

"For Christ's sake!" yelled the Preacher, unusually angry. "In the past our ancestors found a plot of land and built their own home, with as many rooms as they wanted, what is wrong with us?"

"You can't just build your own home," yelled a voice from the back.

"You're right, we can't. They have created laws against it, but they can buy the world with a worthless piece of paper which we are obliged to respect. Consider this... a man buys a patch of land....."

"Why's it got to be a man?" shouted a female voice.

"Forgive me," said the Preacher, "a woman buys a 100 acre plot of land with fictional money promising to pay the bearer ten million pounds of nothing. She builds a house and puts up a private property sign and everyone obeys the instruction to keep out.
However this applies only to humans, no other living creature or organism feels obliged to keep out, why?"

"Because they can't read," shouted a joker.

"You can't tell an ant that the rich own the land it's walking on, you can't tell a bird not to land on a rich person's house, you can't tell a fox, a mouse, a rat, a rabbit, a frog or a hedgehog that it can't cross a certain piece of land because it is owned by someone, you can't tell them because they are free from the artificial constructs that bind us. They don't accept the concept that another living organism can keep a patch of land for themselves simply by promising to pay the bearer nothing for the right so to do. You can only tell this to humans because we have been seduced into thinking that somehow we have benefited from the trade off."

He turned and walked around a bit, then he shrugged, dropped the ten pound note to the floor and walked off stage.

Cheers

Arun







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