Credit

The current news is flooded with stories about failed credit relationships between lenders and borrowers. This is the polite veneer of corporate capitalism in the modern world. All about the paperwork. A distraction from the human misery beneath.

The reality of credit is less dignified. Credit is an invention and tool of those who aggressively gather and horde society's resources for their personal use. It is not a blessing. It is not a civilizing influence. It is a vehicle for the rich to get richer at the expense of those with less. It is a cancer, which eventually increases the spread between the haves and the have-nots.

When government colludes with lenders (banks) by lifting regulation and oversight, as the US Government has done recently, the process of oppression and domination by the haves is accelerated. The historic remedies for this plundering have been catastrophic. Depression, starvation, war.

Yes, I view 'the system' from outside the economists' tight little box. I haven't much liked the few economists I've met actually. Obsession with money makes people narrow and humorless in my opinion.

My practice includes a daily relationship with money, credit and ownership. I am not a monk, supported on the backs of devotees in a pastoral monastery. That is not my concept of practice.

My practice entails being as monetarily independent from lenders as possible in an urban world. I try to avoid paying interest. I do not participate in the corporate machine as much as possible. This takes a great deal of work. It becomes harder and harder to do, since I am a man of meager means.

I think the greatest threat of credit is its invasion of all levels of human interaction. Will we become a species of lenders and borrowers on all levels of interaction? Will we lose the social sense of sharing wealth through generosity and fair taxation, whereby those with more pay more proportionately? Will every good turn be seen as a credit and every human need seen as a debit? Will friendship be replaced by the exchange of debits and credits?