The priorities of money

Please read this article on the sustainability of medicine. In my view it highlights one unfortunate consequence of all monetary systems generally -- despite the fact the article looks solely at the US system -- namely that money can only assume too much control and power. What follows here is my simple take on how money is guaranteed to do so, no matter which monetary system it operates in.

Because in monetary systems it costs money to get things done, profit making, or revenue generating ventures have to be prioritized over loss making or revenue losing ventures. Furthermore, because being rich is necessarily better than being poor, there is an inherent pressure in monetary systems for money (and therefore power) to concentrate increasingly to itself over time. This means that profit making enterprises become increasingly important as the "freely" available pool of money shrinks. Profit making enterprises consequently become increasingly powerful too. Control the money, control the monetary system. This strikes me as an inevitability.

The linked-to article above, the Mike Shedlock comment on the economic madness of building new schools are potent reminders of how culturally vital things like health and education must come to lose access to adequate funding in monetary systems. Only by choosing to re-engineer or redesign society along resource-based economy lines, by choosing willingly and knowingly to wean ourselves off our dependence on scarcity and money, can those institutions which deliver true value be prioritized permanently, and not just while sufficient money is available for the more "noble" causes.