The Birth of the Money Matrix
In July of last year, 2009 - towards the end of my study for an MA in Fine Art, I discovered a Carnival Arts course; the Championing Artists Creative Leadership program designed and hosted by leading carnival arts organisation, Kinetika. What attracted me onto the program was that I had the creative freedom and artistic license to design and make a major Carnival Arts character. Having committed so much energy in launching the London Art Car Parade I felt that learning about the carnival arts would put me in a stronger position to develop the 'Spectacle' side of the parade in future years.
Money - The Square Mile
Our brief as artists was to select and research an area of cultural interest in and around Hackney. Given the financial chaos of that year here in the UK and labelled the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 30's I chose to create a character that represented MONEY....After all, I walked past the cascading glass edifices of the square mile at Liverpool Street everyday to their premises at the Brady Centre. It would be a chance I hoped of raising in people's minds some of the many unquestioned and unanswered issues concerning money, including the power of money to seemingly underpin our very existence. It seems that we in the West are allowing the moral fabric of our society to be eaten away with fearful and self-defeating thoughts such as that without the capacity to generate lots of money a person/tribe/society/country is worthless. That without the financial markets, Britain would be worthless.
The collapse of a global housing bubble in the States in 2006 precipitated high default rates on sub prime mortgages whose initial easy terms expired and homeowners suddenly found themselves with mortgages they just couldn't pay. The low interest rates and huge influx of foreign investment had financed a housing construction boom and encouraged debt financed consumption. The situation of spiralling consumer debt was similarly prevalent here in the UK.
The second string to this rising economic crisis was the part played by the shadow banking system; the investment banks and hedge funders which have far less stringent regulatory boundaries. Like some of the commercial (depository) banks they took on this higher risk of sub prime mortgages but additionally exploited the derivatives market to the full, selling Derivatives at such high leverage that a small movement in the underlying value caused a huge difference in the value of the derivative.
In 2008 then, the bubble burst and 2009 in particular saw unprecedented moves by government here and in the US to use taxpayers money to bailout a number of financial institutions. There was outrage that the US and UK governments having given into previous demands were effectively being held to ransom by the market. The first £500bn bail-out and unseen interest-rate cuts by 6 central banks failed to pursuade investors that the global economy could avoid a recession.
The government then pumped £37 billion of taxpayers money into three UK banks in one of the UK's biggest nationalisations. The government so far has spent £1,121.55 billion thus far (nov 2009) to engineer financial stability.
Obviously these moves have shaken things up, raising controversy and uproar in all quarters. What appears to be glaringly apparent above all else is not merely the layers of deceipt, lack of transparency and responsibility, recklessness and greed, but the sheer lack of creativity and visionary social thinking when it comes to money.
One of the most inspirational figures to my mind who speaks about money is the global activist and fundraiser Lynne Twist. she passionately and eloquently discusses how money can be a vehicle to fulfill our highest ideals in life and give up profound meaning in our lives. Her brilliant book, The Soul of Money reminds us that when you consciously trace and follow where and what it flows to, you discover what you really care about. That we have choices in distributing these limited resources in more creative and just ways.In her book she clarifies the 3 toxic myths that most people carry around Scarcity:
1. That there's not enough which means that we define our world and ourselves as deficient in life. We live from a sense of lack and conduct our lives creating systems and institutions to control any resources that we perceive as being limited and valuable.
2. That More is better which drives a competitive culture of accumulation, greed and acquisition and distances us from experiencing the deeper value of what we already have.
3. That's just the way it is, which keeps us feeling hopeless, helpless and unresourceful. We are resigned to our history, to the so called story of human 'greed' and 'prejudice' and fail to see that we are all responsible.
Similarly another of my favourite authors on the topic of money is David Boyle of the New Economics Foundation, who points out that:
1. There is a fundamental moral problem about the way we use money: it isn't immoral, but it is amoral – it values very unimportant things (McDonald franchises, foreign exchange, hedge funds) very highly, and very important things (families, communities, nurses) very low.
2. Because of this, it tends to drive out what's good in society, and what's vital for our lives. Big currencies drive out variety, diversity and creativity leaving just money behind. And if you don't believe me, look at Jersey.
3. Money seems to be running out – at least for the vital things in life – because useless but lucrative investments where money breeds on money suck it all up, and we find that the money for reality gets whittled away.
I am inclined to agree with the conclusion he makes, that there is no wealth but life and the very apparent danger he outlines that people who want to produce books or grow barley or sell food now have to do so through the gaps, and with the crumbs that are the by-products of speculation, of the financial roundabout that booms above them and produces nothing real. Soon, it may be impossible.
I have no doubt that People of every age have confused money with real value, and they probably always will – but we is it not time in 2010 to step up to the challenge and educate ourselves and our young people of what the traps are and their consequences?
