Throw Away Money (703 hits)
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Submitted by orph (View user info) at 2007-08-21 10:59:16 EDT
He just didn't believe it was worth anything anymore.
Emptying his wallet onto the plush rug that covered the stained carpet of his apart-box, Terry mused at the clinking, shiny coins and plastic coated notes that signified his weekly wage.
"Five hundred and twenty-six credits, plus eighty-five sub-credits," he murmured, as he built a small pile of coinage and thin wad of currency slips.
It certainly didn't look like a fair trade for sixty hours of his time that week. Terry was an operative at the local GM-Osaka-Morgan commodities plant, producing all manner of household items for the city-pod in which he lived - him and two-hundred million others.
Earth had changed in the last three hundred years. 2307 found humans restricted to self-contained city-pods, roughly similar to the urban areas of the 21st century, but without the suffocating suburban sprawl. Countries were a thing of the past. The city-state was the model of civilisation.
Climate was controlled within the pods, which were enclosed by huge, pustule like covers that soared a kilometre above street level. It was doubtful that a city dweller would have actually seen the true sky above the world. Humidity, precipitation and light were the products of the colossal weather control systems, housed in equally impressive engineering feats attached to the underside of the covers.
The land outside the pods was a wasteland, reeking of the sludge and castings leftover from the intense, fevered desecration of the planet to provide the raw materials consumed by the cities. Environmentalism was not high on any agenda, as the human focus had switched to full self-preservation, leaving no room for the assessment of consequences to the other species that inhabited the planet.
The state of the world was not the result of any cataclysmic destruction of the old order - just the natural progression of the economic ideals of production, supply and demand. Terry was a cog in this perpetually rolling wheel, and today he realised it was all for nothing.
While it was true that Terry was compensated for his time, albeit frugally, and that he could exchange his credits for goods and services, he felt that something was missing. The whole system, he belated realised, hung on the self, and mass delusion that the flimsy plastic/paper fibre slips with numbers on them, were real money.
Now Terry was by no means the first person to come to this conclusion he mused as he left his box of an apartment. However, he was the first to voice such thoughts to Carl, who owned and operated the caffeine bar at the base of Terry's building.
"I just don't think this is worth anything anymore," he told Carl, dumping his wages on the bar. The coins rattled and rolled, spilling onto the floor, where they were eagerly swept up by the street-beggars that crawled everywhere in the city.
The beggars were an embarrassment to the city-pod, and they did in fact crawl everywhere, thanks to legislation that those who begged for a living, contributing nothing to the pod were damned to the prone position until their circumstances improved. It was not odd to see old men and women, pulling themselves along on calloused elbows, with long unused legs atrophied and dangling behind them on the ground.
Terry watched the beggars with a look of amusement, and turned back to Carl.
"Is this all I'm worth per week? Does it all boil down to this pile of worthless paper?"
Carl looked up from his paper, kicked a scrawny beg-kid away from the cash register, assessing the implications of what Terry had said.
"Terry that is the single most poignant utterance I have ever heard."
"Really? Really? Well then, what should I do Carl? Is it time for the huddled masses to rise up and throw off the yolk of our richer, smarter, and sexier betters?"
"Maybe Terry, but it's the year 2307, and we're all equal if you'd care to remember," replied Carl.
"But some are more equal than others Carl," Terry shot back.
"True, very true Terry. I'll tell you what; I'll not accept any more cash for my coffees from now on. People are going to have to give me something worth more than money. Something tangible, something that I can use!"
"Wow Carl, thanks. I'll have a double espresso and sit back and watch the fun," said Terry excitedly, laying down a five-credit note.
"Fuck off! What is this shit? Give me something worth something - your paper's not welcome here!" Carl shouted, forcing Terry to back away from the counter.
"I'll be right back," he muttered.
Dejectedly, Terry wandered the myriad of streets and levels in the pod, looking endlessly for something he could buy to swap for a coffee. He wondered what he had started by sharing his idea with Carl, and then his thoughts turned to his work, his life, and the pointlessness of it all.
He toyed with the idea of joining a space pirate crew, hovering in a sub-orbit pattern above the earth, preying on the inter-pod transports that were the lifeblood of the world economy. But an almighty shout brought him back to the present, and he turned around to see a milling, angry crowd swarming down the street towards him.
"What's going on?" he asked one of what looked to be protestors.
"Something's happened to the money!" the man cried hysterically, "We can't buy coffee and all the other stores have started demanding real things for their goods! It's economic meltdown!"
"Where did you get all these placards and banners so quickly?" Terry asked, as his view was soon swamped with a frenzied mob bearing all manner of signs and slogans. Some, more worryingly, bore truncheons and sharpened sticks.
"The rent-a-crowd store around the corner," the man spat, as he shrugged off Terry's grip and rejoined the throng.
"What have I done?" Terry mused, as he bustled against the mounting tide of people and ran back to Carl's bar.
The scene that greeted him was manic. Carl stood astride a makeshift barrier erected in front of the bar doors, wielding a whip in one hand, and a freshly plucked chicken in the other. The whip swirled and cracked as Carl held back the crowd, all the time yelling, "Like for Like! Give me something worth something!"
People flung the clothes off their backs, home-wares and pilfered items from other stores at him, whilst his waiters responded with a barrage of cappuccinos and mochas in return.
Carl spotted Terry in the crowd and motioned him into the bar, ducking a fresh loaf of bread as he jumped down.
"Terry, this is fantastic!" Carl enthused, as he waded through his newly acquired booty.
Like a modern day Robespierre, Carl had seized the opportunity presented by Terry, and had already a group of hired pamphleteers in the back room churning out propaganda regarding the worthlessness of the currency.
"I have enough stuff to last me for months, and all in exchange for coffees," Carl swept his hand around the store, which was illuminated with all manner of things, all received as payment for Carl's hot brews. Terry fell into a plush armchair, momentarily wondering how this had made its way inside, and sighed.
"Carl, this is madness - what have I done?"
"You've opened our eyes Terry, don't you see? We've been wage-slaves for far too long, and for what? Paper? Are we all mad? You're the Marx to my Lenin, the Bolivar to my Guevara, the Crosby to my Stills and Nash! We can take charge of this pod."
He charged back out the door, and as if out of thin air, flourished an electro-spear, and pointing towards the fake sky, marshalled the swirling crowd out the front of his shop.
"Citizens, here me! Today, we march, not for ourselves, well a bit for ourselves, but mostly for freedom from the artificial yoke of money!! We demand real things for our work, not useless slips of paper! Come my friends - to the Capital Building!"
His impromptu speech roused a chorus of cheers from the people, and they quickly joined the mayhem that was pouring down every street, seeping into every alley, and building up against every wall. Flood-like you could say. Terry was swept away with the mob.
*
"People, people, please calm down, there is nothing wrong with the money. Our pod is one of the most prosperous in the world. Why only this morning, we have finalised a deal with Neo-Bratislava, confirming our access to nickel for years to come!" implored the chief minister.
The crowd took no notice, and responded with endless booing and jeering, calling for his resignation, and demanding a reinstitution of the barter-system.
"Fuck these hippies," he muttered to an aide, "Release the guard."
The minister was at a loss. As if out of nowhere, the markets had crashed, civil order disintegrated, and the city streets clogged and at the mercy of the great unwashed.
He knew the worst was to come; as soon as they found out that the fiat currency was in fact backed by nothing, all hell would break (further) loose. The pod's gold reserves had long ago been traded away, a fact known only to him and a close circle, which made the current crisis all the more acute - how had they known?
*
The red uniforms of the city-pod's guard formed a thin line against the every increasing crowd of citizens. Carl was at the forefront, pressed into the face-visor of a guardsman, imploring the mob to burst through and sack the building. Following a harshly barked order, the guard drew their stun-batons and began to beat back the protestors.
Carl's shrill yell was heard above the melee.
"Beat us you bastards, but how will you survive? Who will sell you food and goods? No one will touch your money!"
This gave pause to the brutal tactics, as the individual guardsmen looked at each other, weighing up the consequences of their actions. The screams and exhortations of their commanders tore through the air, urging them to finish the job.
One guard pulled Carl to his feet, and posed a question.
"But if the Wealth of Nations has taught us anything, and I for one believe it has, is that mercantilism is not required for a successful economy. We don't need piles of gold-back currency to operate. We just need to believe that the money is worth something, and everything will run smoothly."
Carl shot back, "True my learned friend, yet Das Capital expounds upon the labour theory of value, a point which Terry brought to my attention this morning. In this pod, there exists a surplus value to the labour we are providing, and therefore wage slavery is in evidence. Do you feel adequately compensated for your work?"
The guard nodded, turned, and began to wield his baton against his officers. The others followed, and soon the crowd had breached the outer defences of the Capital Building, and streamed into the inner sanctum.
The scene that met their eyes was horrific. The inner bowels of the building, from which the city-pod economy was controlled, was a seething pit.
Paradox ruled as businessmen and traders flushed handfuls of money down the toilet, only to find gold lining their pockets. Whores fucked themselves back into virgins; others destroyed the things they loved, whilst a madman in the corner rocked slowly, muttering over and over again, "Less is more, less is more."
The futility of it all finally dawned on the mob.
User Reviews
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2007-08-22 10:32:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-08-21 11:49:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you rock.
--
Nothing more to add than that really.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-08-22 04:25:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Eh?
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-08-22 02:48:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2007-08-22 01:03:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-08-21 17:29:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Am I the only one that likes the word 'Bratislava' - I like saying it, it's fun.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-08-21 15:46:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
see, Uber doesn't suck after all
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2007-08-21 15:29:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this rules, sci-fi forever
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-08-21 14:39:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
he muses alot. don't make him muse so much it's annoying.
Submitted by Director (user info) at 2007-08-21 13:47:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by azurefroz (user info) at 2007-08-21 13:07:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You make reading (fun)damental.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2007-08-21 12:25:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
"The beggars were an embarrassment to the city-pod, and they did in fact crawl everywhere, thanks to legislation that those who begged for a living, contributing nothing to the pod were damned to the prone position until their circumstances improved. It was not odd to see old men and women, pulling themselves along on calloused elbows, with long-unused legs atrophied and dangling behind them on the ground."
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-08-21 12:19:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2007-08-21 11:53:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Didn't read it, honestly. I just scrolled down really fast and my eye fixed on the words "space pirate".
You win the +2pendous freebie award for the day for that.
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-08-21 11:49:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you rock.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2007-08-21 11:27:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
There was a lesson in there wasn't there?
why in the future is there always stun-batons?
Isn't anyone making guns anymore.