Sunday, February 22, 2015

Arbitrary Use of Money & The Political Realm

"It is the ruler's stamp, not the intrinsic value of the monetary medium that confers value"

The above quote caused me to reflect on how arbitrary the circulation of currency is. Value accumulates within a specific social context and the acceptability of its use (utility). The colonial era in Vietnam exemplified this concept with how other countries would come in with the goal of re-ordering hierarchy; as seen in the Japanese with seizing the gold mines of Indochina and issuing out paper piastres to increase inflation therefore reinforcing Japan's own monetary national value and with the French ban of silver trade in the Indochina region so that the piastre had to be tailored to a gold standard. The use of political control to ensure the devaluing of a nation's economic independence is evident.

I am compelled to question how such arbitrary and unstable meanings of value can hold legitimacy for any matter of time. The use of force comes into play as the French could confiscate and ban other forms of money, making theirs the only acceptable form. The people in this case can hardly rebel as they find employment through French-controlled operations where they are by law issued less money than European counterparts. It is no wonder the Global South struggles to survive above the poverty line as the historical happenstances of their independence is tainted by power struggles to keep indigenous peoples in a perpetual state of inferiority.

This is why Ho Chi Minh's monetary revolutionary policies were effective for a time because the value of money is recognized when a person / regime of power is issuing it / enforcing its legitimacy. By providing a strong nationalist, independence-driven movement, the people found that they had a choice to use Vietnamese issued currency to trade for Vietnamese products, as Vietnamese people will accept what is Vietnamese. It was exactly the type of warfare needed in the country to counteract widespread issues of power and legitimacy. They served as a challenge to the mechanisms of colonialism to bring power back to the people.

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