An Interview with Jacob Needleman

JB: So, if it's not wealth, what does money represent?

JN: It's a social promise, a representation of work. It represents the desire part of human nature which is so strong... Money makes things real in human life. People tend not to want to see it that way, or else they give it too much power.

This is a very short section from the interview with JN, which reminded me a lot of what I used to learn in high school: "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." People these days associate money with power, and thus, they become greedy about it. However, this is not we should see money. According to JN, money is meant to be "an instrument of love, an instrument of service." If people see money the way JN does, the world can be a better place to live than it is today. 

Chapter 8 - Toward a Topography of Financial Transactions

The acts of transactions of a person depict rapture in the integrity as well as in the consciousness of an individual. In this regards, one is not compelled towards unified aesthetic which lead to the realization of an integral part of the inner landscape which leads to such rapture. It is perceived that with money a whole numeric system is dictated and thus allowing one to count as well as an account but not to know the expression as well as its meaning. The system of money is based on its objectivity as well as in its measurements and most importantly in quantification in the tyranny of human invention. In this regards, the physical aspects can be found to be simple as it measures the abstract concepts which entail the price, value as well as wages which is deemed to be rational in the acts of instant transactions.

Talking about the topography of transaction, it involves several layers and conditions. Each transaction has four components—the physical, the participatory/circulatory, the quality of feeling, and consciousness or recognition. Physically, it has at least two parties and involves the aspects of time and function. Also, physical material(s) is exchanged during the transaction, which can be the documents, paper, coins, card swiping, or even a handshake. Beside the physical dimension, value, which is more subjective and perceptive, is also important within a transaction. Then the author raise a question of how people sense and assess the value. Not only the measurable and public aspects are important in a transaction, so does the personal perceived value. This non-material aspect has no economic value in scientific theory; however, it possibly has larger long-term impact in the human energetic level.

Consciousness sees the connection between the value provided to the world through investment and the expected financial/social return driving the investment in the first place. This creates as a dynamic tension between community interest and self-interest. The author clearly states that he attempted to reclaim what lies behind the human invention of money. The bottom-line is every transaction has both inner space and outer manifestations. As money moves through the strata of physical, circulatory, value, and consciousness in time, financial transactions become human transactions. Every human being has consciousness that could determine his or her participation in the circulation of money.

Chapter 15 - The Transcendentalist and the Immigrant

Two Views of Money in America

History of money in America:

• Alexander Hamilton’s monetarist approach
• a monetary system as an accounting tool for economic trade - exchange of goods and currencies
• any physical things could be monetized - labor, natural resources, and commodities

Two perspectives on money and its effects in the American culture:

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson: moral challenge of accumulating wealth

“Nobody should be rich but those who understand it"

2. Eva Hoffman: the force that money bears, and the causal relationship between the creation of wealth and the rise of poverty

“Money, in America, is a force so extreme as to become a religious force, a confusing deity, which demands either idolatry or a spiritual education"

 “Those in poverty will never have enough; those with wealth will face … never-ending demands to spend.”

Chapter 8 - Economic Chiaroscuro

Georges de La Tour: The Payment of Taxes

• Georges De La Tour illustrates not just a physical painting but one of the interior person in his piece, regarding a tax exchange.
• The three positions of the taxpayer, the collector and the power authority are all symbolic of relations to money and economic life that is relatable for all individuals in different situations. They reflect societal and economic tensions in La Tour’s day, which are issues of class and power. He is not cynically critic however but rather observant of the societal dynamics.
• “In painting, as in life, both the light and the shadow, the chiaroscuro, are different sides of the same coin and share a common source.”

Written by: Asako and Amanda