Debate held in
Participants:
Rainer WILLERT:
Economic studies, organizer of this published debate.
Joseph BEUYS:
German Artist, professor of monumental sculptures at the Beaux-Arts Academy of Düsseldorf. Beuys elaborated an enlarged concept of art, the artistic discipline of ‘social structure’, which invites everyone to explore laws of social organism and to participate in the becoming of its form.
“Social Sculpture refers to a conception of art, framed in the 1970s by Beuys, as an interdisciplinary and participatory process in which thought, speech and discussion are core 'materials'. With this perception, all human beings are seen as 'artists' responsible for the shaping of a democratic, sustainable social order. Social Sculpture lifts the aesthetic from its confines within a specific sphere or media, relocating it within a collective, imaginative work-space in which we can see, re-think and reshape our lives in tune with our creative potential.”
More information on Social Sculpture Research Unit:
http://www.social-sculpture.org/
More information on Joseph Beuys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Beuys
Johann Philipp Von BETHMANN:
Co-owner of Bethmann Bank and author of essays on business administration.
Hans Christoph BINSWANGER:
Professor in national economy and director of the research center for national economy of the superior
Werner EHRLICHER:
Professor in finance sciences at the
Introduction-
In 1978, Willert attended an exposition in the Kunsthalle of Düsseldorf entitled ‘Musee de l’Argent’ where Beuys’ work was displayed. In 1984, Beuys exposes his work in
The main question was on exactly what foundation was Beuys talking about economics?
One of the perspectives of art is that it is potentially incapable of comprehending social dimensions, and therefore needs to remain at a level at which it only is influenced and influences: culture. Rainer Willert initiated this debate hoping to make economists, bankers and researchers, describe the activity as well as the role, the body, of money in comparison to art and the artist Beuys; to clarify maybe the distance between both sides and also elaborate Beuys’ ideas.
3 Perspectives
(a) Performance knowledge: described as knowledge intended for domination, to dominate the world, and often describing political economy, a realist tradition in economic theory. Money as power.
(b) Formation knowledge: describing any preconceived ideas about money in the psychic structures and social relations, in reality and values, how money influences attitudes and its enchainment to destiny.
(c) Redemption knowledge: which attempts to establish value, interrogates on fixation of norms, and would ask: In what way has Capitalism been harmful to human soul? In what way would it be profitable to create another form of money, or to abolish money?
(Max Scheler).
The Debate
“Money is that which has the value of money”
Aristotle
Most people conceptualize money, consciously or unconsciously, as ‘nothing’ yet it participates in certain aspects of our lives with much more meaning than we tend to believe. It is a cultural phenomenon as much as it is valued merchandise and an instrument of control.
Money was created to facilitate operations of payments and exchange as an intermediary good. Gold or silver were of ‘proper nature’, sort of speak, and were traded for their natural properties and values. In 1931, with a shortage of gold, paper money became the next intermediary value and prices were subject to change. Inflation, due to the vast number of paper money being printed, resulted in loosing the only tangible aspect of money and contributed to the mutation of the sacredness of money, a sort of finality, into a form of interest (1). (Bethmann).
Interestingly, commerce and cultures were significantly changed by the arrival of coins during the VII Century B.C., going from a system of exchange ‘in nature’ to an accessible equivalence of value. Coins were able to promote trade through the Mediterranean economy from the Greek lands to
Pittakos, one of the seven wise men of Antiquity around the year 650, had mentioned something that still is true today: The Gain is Insatiable. Binswanger makes it a point that it is not humans that are insatiable, it is not the one who gains either, but what is insatiable is inside, a human aspect channeling through money and colliding with a finite environment.
The human ‘spirit’ has been looked at unimportantly in our culture as opposed to how it influenced Antiquity,
The passage to Capitalism was due to the radical division of human labor provoked by industrialization and the Bourgeoisie’s revolution. A shift in society, initiated by Ricardo and Smith and continued with Capitalism, was the shift into monetary exchange, unrelated to value but money and re-enforced the gaps in ownership and capital. The proletariat was attempting to be recognized for its creativity, its labor, in dignity (Beuys). In this sense capitalism needs to be understood as an economy of monetary exchange that is only a small part of the broader picture for now. Everyone working is the Proletariat, independently and freely disposing of the work place and leading towards an economy of capacity. (Beuys).
More scientifically money always involves two parties and when a debt is generated, money is created. It is important to consider that in modern economy, more money is created every time a private group has added some kind of monetary value.
Principally money is neither good, nor bad; it is amoral and needs to be managed properly in order to be used as instrument of value. Most of the misery today is based on not knowing what money is and how it functions, its mechanisms. The main problem being that we are not capable of controlling money and it needs to become a single human aspect since it originates from human spirit and social interaction, as opposed to continually being demonized. (Bethmann).
Importantly, much of nature has been an open concept that is seen as what it offers. Money is exactly the same in the sense that money is not only money but offers what institutions, individuals, want to make of it.
To conclude this debate, money, a substance, an intermediary good, has been revolutionized as an instrument of interest as a creator of more money. We notice that historically Money, the working force of nations, has not contributed to the artistic potential of society in labor. We notice that the proletariat has not benefited from the value money has in terms of judicial document of rights. We notice that the grand oeuvre of money has been to set value on the artistic forms of cultures. At last we remain in a society which offers a potential, a multitude of ways to prescribe power, justice, and equality and that money can be the instrument of change.
(1) “L’Argent Sacree/ Sacred Money” by Laum.
Sacredness of money refers to the uses of metals, precious stones, gold, and silver. Finality implies that once exchanged the traded good (gold, silver etc) was the last value.
