Israeli Kindergarten. Dual-income couples often arrived late to pick up their children. As a result, the kindergarten implemented a rule that parents would face a fine if they were late; however, even though this introduced a penalty system, it also led to more delays in pickup times. By replacing feelings of guilt with money, paying a fee for being late became the new norm. After recognizing the mistake and removing the fine system, what happened? More parents started arriving late. When money becomes involved, the exchange of value fundamentally changes the nature of the relationship. And once that change occurs, it doesn’t revert. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
Capitalistic thinking is not about domination by capital; it refers to financial thinking. The economy revolves around exchange. The performance of the counterparty corresponding to what I want to exchange is called ‘ consideration ,’ and a ‘ transaction ’ is the accumulation of added value by exchanging equal considerations. However, among transactions, this consideration is not relative but absolute; trading solely in one fiat currency as consideration is termed ‘ finance .’ When I obtain a loan, the bank lends me fiat currency (the bank’s consideration), but my obligation is to return the fiat principal plus the contracted interest . The consideration in this transaction is unidirectional, involving only one fiat currency. In contrast, when I buy shoes, the seller has an obligation to hand over the shoes to me, and I have a counterpart obligation to pay in fiat currency. Once these two considerations are exchanged, an industrial transaction occurs. However, as noted earlier, in f...