Marinus van Reymerswaele, “The Moneychanger and His Wife,” 1539, Museo del Prado, Madrid
489 words
Editor’s Note:
The following text is an excerpt from a collection of unpublished notes entitled “Thoughts Personal and Superpersonal,” transcribed and annotated by Kerry Bolton. The title of the selection is mine.
Money. The well-known American orientation to money, according to which everything is assessed in terms of dollars and cents, including religion, art, politics, social life, and individual life, does not arise from greed and covetousness. These things are human, not national. The method of comparing all things with one standard is simply an expression of the uniformity of America: this uniformity is adjusted to a very low level, specifically to the animal level of man, the plane of which health, happiness and comfort are what relegates problems. But all of these problems—and there are no others in America—can be easily resolved in terms of the great money common denominator. To an American—whose acquaintance with, say, the aesthetic side of the Western Culture is as slight in comparison with a European as would be that of a present-day-European in comparison with a European of the Rococo—it is no strain of the mind to assess Frans Hals[1] and Ruysdael[2] in terms of money. To him these things come under the heading of “beautiful surroundings,” in other words, comfort.
***
Three different orientations to money: American, English, German.
- To the American, money is life.
- To the Englishman, (the true Englishman, a type now almost extinct, the historical Englishman) money was culture.
- To a true Prussian-German, money is preservation.
The whole German economy, even though it still uses money—I am speaking of course, of the Third Reich—is a symbolic attempt to defeat money.[3] The effort of German social creations is to make the amount of money an individual receives directly proportionate to his needs. The only role played by money in the process is that of facilitating it. Money dispenses with the administration that would be necessary to operate a non-money economy.[4]
In England, need never played any part in the money-outlook. The aim of everyone was to have as much as possible. As long as the upper stratum retained its sense of a world-mission, this concept of money-as-culture (culture means here: higher life) did no damage; it effected no degeneration. Granted, it ruined the lower classes, but they did not matter to the world-mission.
Notes
1. Dutch painter, 1582–1666.
2. Salomon van Ruysdael, Dutch painter 1603–1670.
3. For the practical measures by which the Third Reich “defeated money” while also providing for the needs of its folk, see: K. R. Bolton, “Breaking the Bondage of Interest: A Right Answer to Usury,” Counter-Currents, https://counter-currents.com/2011/08/breaking-the-bondage-of-interest-a-right-answer-to-usury-part-1/
4. Yockey is alluding to a fundamental truth, albeit one that is today seldom realized: that money should, serve merely as a convenient token of exchanging goods and services; not as a commodity upon which the profits and power of the plutocrats are founded.
3 comments
That contrast between American, Victorian and German attitudes to money is thought-provoking. Alternatively, one could argue that in the USA, money rules the State (as is the case with capitalist nations the world over), whereas in the Third Reich, the State ruled money (which is what national socialism entails).
Of course, my view is merely an echo of what William Joyce declared decades ago:
‘To be clear on the whole matter, we must realize that, fundamentally, there can be only two views as to the purpose of money. There may be a thousand intermediate shades of opinion: but, eventually, one is forced back into the position of having to decide whether money exists for man or man for money, whether money is merely a symbol of real wealth enabling commodities and services to be exchanged or whether it is the determinant of all industry by the criterion of which production and distribution must be regulated. The former is the concept of National-Socialism, the latter is the theory of Liberal Capitalism and International Finance.’ (William Joyce, Twilight Over England, page 52 of 108).
Surely you know that Maynard Keynes was an advisor to Hjalmar Schacht.
Listen — money comes down to this: You must have enough money ‘put by’ for a rainy day. Take it down to the personal level — capitalism allows you to make money in the markets or by owning your own ‘means of production’ — a little corner grocery, or a few acres of food crops to feed yourself and a nearby Saturday market, etc., and a decent little hovel in which to enjoy the fruits of your labor each evening. I have never had the faintest idea of what ‘to each according to their needs’ means — a self-centered woman ‘needs’ to have her hair and nails ‘done’ weekly or she has a nervous breakdown — whilst I get by with digging dirt out of my nails after working in the garden.
As for usury, I would say that anything over 10% charges for money borrowing is usury, and I do know that Jews indeed charged 30% to 90% in the old days, though banks still charge 30% on some credit cards, as do pawn shops. Jews indeed got immensely rich on this method, and Hitler was right to ‘ban’ them, but certainly not to execute their women and children, etc., though I do see his point, and we have to live with the consequences, and certainly never repeat them.
Everyone needs to engage in ‘personal capitalism’ — work, earn, save, invest — and everyone should want to learn the rules of this endeavor. Also, never confuse investing with gambling.
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