In our pages we have already analyzed how money has been destroyed over the centuries, how it was made worth less and less, and how it was eventually reduced from the position of gold to a piece of paper. If you don't know what we're talking about, click on this link. By the way, we also recommend our series on currency debasement in Poland (you can find it here). Today, however, we are going to deal with yet another aspect. Along with the decisions of politicians, rulers and bureaucrats, people's thinking about what money actually is has also changed. And in this series, we will analyze how this thinking has evolved over the centuries. Plato: Money changes people (for the worse)! We don't know when exactly people began to think about the nature of money. Or to put it another way: we have indications that the earliest people to do so were the ancient Greeks, which does not exclude the possibility that the topic of "money" appeared in conversations around the campfire of our great-great-great ancestors, who were just baking, for example, a steak from a recently hunted mammoth. Interestingly enough, the ancient Greeks had a problem with money, which closely resembles the one we all probably know. After all, who isn't annoyed by people who "flaunt" their excess wealth, right? It turns out that a similar annoyance such gentlemen aroused in ... Plato. He evidently preferred to talk with his friends about the matrix in which most of us live (the Wachowski siblings were evidently familiar with his famous cave metaphor), rather than exchange information on which markets to pour capital into now. - It is sad to deal with them [he wrote about people who are only interested in money - note bitcoin.pl], because they do not want to praise anything, only money - complained the philosopher. Although today most of us believe that money is the foundation of the state and governing people, the Greek thinker also had a different opinion in this field. - It seems that we have found two new things for the guards to watch out for, so that it never creeps into the city behind their backs," he is said to have told his colleagues at the Academy. Once someone asked what he meant again, he would surprise them with the answer: - [It's] wealth and poverty. For one breeds superstition, laziness and subversive tendencies, and the other debases and gives rise to crime, in addition to subversive tendencies. In truth, however, Plato noticed an interesting phenomenon, which was later observed for centuries. The emergence of a very wealthy elite, which lacked a certain work ethic and drive, always led to "laziness" and "superfluity. In other words, the richest became lazy and had no apparent reason, like their ancestors, for further development. Admittedly, it can be argued whether this was strictly the fault of money rather than the lack of transmission of certain patterns, but as we can see, Plato blamed it on the former factor. The philosopher was also not a proponent of bullion money. In his view, gold is merely a means of accumulating wealth in the hands of the lower classes and - again! - a source of moral corruption. However, the one who thought that Plato was the progenitor of communists, who dreamed of eliminating money as such, is mistaken. Plato believed that gold should disappear from the market, but in its place a "sign for exchange" was to be introduced. What did that mean? We might consider something along the lines of fiat currency. Anyway, maybe even Bitcoin itself would appeal to him in some sense! Aristotle as Warren Buffett Plato had his own disciples. To this day, we mostly remember Aristotle. It's no wonder, though, since it was this wise man who went down in history as the teacher of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian ruler who conquered a large part of the world during his lifetime. And he did it well before the age of 40! But let us return to Aristotle. He was a disciple of Plato, but both had such different opinions on many issues that they not only headed their own schools, but also inspired generations of subsequent philosophers (such as St. Thomas and St. Augustine, both important to Christianity). Aristotle also had a completely different opinion on money. He believed that money is something necessary, but he was also far from erecting altars to mammon. "However, it is sometimes thought that money is just an empty word, that its value is only based on a decision, but by nature it has no value, because if those who use it change it, it loses its value and cannot be used to satisfy their needs (...)". - he wrote and then recalled the famous myth of King Midas, who turned everything he touched into gold, but because of this he ultimately died. For man cannot feed on gold! This is an argument that is often heard in the context of cryptocurrencies as well. As you can see, people do not change, only decorations and props are modified.... Interestingly, Aristotle's rhetoric was somewhat reminiscent of what ... Warren Buffett tells us today about Bitcoin. After all, the famous Omaha investor keeps saying that cryptocurrency lacks "no intrinsic value" and BTC "is not a value-creating asset." "If you're buying something like a farm, an apartment building or shares of
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