Money - A Hindrance to the Evolution?

Abstract 

 

Money has become an indispensable part of humanity for at least a few millennia in some form or the other. The concept of money has evolved through the ages from barter to bitcoins. However, compared to the age and the expanse of the universe this time is nothing more than a blink of an eye. Therefore, one must think about the position the money has taken in the development of our civilization. Today, all the technological developments like medicines, space exploration and newer sources of energy are held hostage to the mighty dollar. This raises a serious question, is money really a motivating factor or it is holding back any meaningful technological evolution? Has the concept of money become outdated? In this article we will explore how money has played a role of the motivating factor for technological evolution and how it has become the glass ceiling too tough to break. 

 

I. Introduction - A Brief History of Money

 

Concept of money predates the invention of writing [1-2]. It has been an impetus for empires and civilizations to expand in time and stature. It has taken various forms over the millennia, e.g. gold, cattle, land or even weirder stuff like stone discs and salt. Even the modern form of money similar to bank notes has its origins in the 11th century [3]. Over the past three centuries it has developed more rapidly than ever constituting a global economy and financial empires. From the early forms of barter systems the world has reached to a cryptic and arguably the more equitable [4] form of money known as 'Cryptocurrency'. The first and most widely known example of this so called cryptocurrency is 'Bitcoin' [5]. Throughout the history the money has gained more and more importance for human culture and civilization. However, with its growing importance the power of money to affect anything in an adverse way has become manifold. In a sense, its nuisance value has increased. In the subsequent sections of this article, we will see how this has affected humanity and what impact it has on evolution of human civilization.

II. Money - An Impetus and Hindrance for Technological Development

If we observe history of humanity in the last three centuries, all the global expansionism and the technological development that has followed finds its roots in the desire to acquire more money in the form of land, gold or other resources over the globe. In a sense, the greed for money has fueled many technological advances from global travel to space travel. However, in the latter part of the 20th century and the early decades of the 21st century, it is constantly coming to notice that many technological advancements have been stalled due to unavailability of 'money'. It appears that the focus of the rich and affluent or human beings in general has shifted from spending the money for a purpose to gaining more and more money without any significant motive other than becoming rich and politically powerful to maintain the monopoly. 

The scientific and technological advancement during the colonization period was fueled by the insatiable greed of colonial powers to acquire more resources and in lesser time. Since the global exploration has ended mainly after the first world war, the focus of the powerful and affluent has shifted towards gaining and maintaining the upper hand on the global politics using money instead of exploration.This has started a slump or a slowdown for the development and quite possibly the evolution of human race [6-7]. 

 

Prima facie, it seems to be a little farfetched and preposterous argument since the post world war II era has seen an accelerated development in the field of computers, transport, energy, medicine and physics. However, if we observe closely, there has been nothing as impactful as the moon landing in last 50 years. During that time, people were really hopeful that in the next 50 years man will set foot on other planets and the era of space exploration has begun. Still, nothing happened which was as impactful as the moon landing was. In last 50 years, we have been seeing more and more technical projects delayed due to unavailability of the money. In fact unavailability of funding is the number one problem cited by over 270 world leading scientists in a survey [8].

 

In summary, we can safely say that once a powerful impetus, money is fast turning into a hindrance for the technological development.

 

III. How This Affects Evolution?

 

Even if the money proves to be the toughest hindrance to the technological development, how it can affect evolution? Humanity has evolved as a culture and a civilization throughout the millennia. The evolution is not just in anatomical properties but the human evolution is vastly linked to its technological evolution. From the cave dwelling early humans we have become the space faring race of beings thanks to our technological development. 

This growth has never been linear. Without plotting any data, it is safe to say that this growth has been exponential. It is evident by the technological developments in the last two millennia, last two centuries and last two decades. If the pace of this growth slows down it will take more and more time for humans to reach the outer reaches of our solar system let alone the other parts of the galaxy or universe. Albeit, the space exploration is a Brobdingnagian task as compared to global exploration for colonization. Still, it is definitely the next step for humanity to conquer as that is how technological development is fueled. 

If, this technological development is held hostage to the mighty dollar it is going to take more time and delay the progress of human civilization into a space faring civilization. This in turn means many more inventions which are byproducts of the space exploration will be delayed as well. In the nutshell, it stagnates or extremely decelerates the pace of technological development.

IV. Another Perspective - Is Money Essential for the Evolution?

So far, we have thought only about the third rock from the sun. However, it would be foolish to assume that life hasn't evolved anywhere in this vast expanse of the universe. Since money or the concept of money is not an intrinsic law of science for the universe to function it definitely is a dispensable concept in the bigger picture. It is just a trivial socioeconomic system for the so called intelligent life on the blue dot. This gives rise to two intriguing scenarios. First, there may be another civilization which has evolved without the concept of money and some other form of incentive/impetus for development and the other scenario would be a sufficiently advanced civilization which has evolved past the concept of money to find some other form of incentive/impetus for the technological advancement.May be some other civilization which has had a few million years of a head start on humanity has achieved huge technological advancement since ditching the concept of money. 

 

V. Conclusion

To conclude, it can be asserted that the pace of the technological growth has slowed down and the main reason for that is the unavailability of the funding. This might be because of the focus of rich, affluent and powerful is to earn money and control the world rather than exploring beyond our planet. This brings us to a juncture where we humans must think the role and requirement of the concept of money. If this is becoming a hindrance to the development of our civilization we must find a way to discard this concept and find a new way which will give an incentive or impetus to the technological development. 

 

This discussion in its entirety gives some interesting questions to contemplate, what if there is another intelligent civilization which has evolved without developing a concept of money or what if there is a civilization which has got a few millennium years of a head start on us and ha evolved past the concept of money? What their progress would be and what would be the incentive/impetus for their development?

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

[1] Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. “Tokens: Their Significance For The Origin Of Counting And Writing | Denise Schmandt-Besserat.” University of Texas, Austin, https://sites.utexas.edu/dsb/tokens/tokens/. Accessed 8 Aug. 2020. 

[2] “What Is Money?” Investopedia, 26 June 2019, https://www.investopedia.com/insights/what-is-money/. 

[3] Headrick, Daniel R. Technology : A World History. Oxford University Press, https://web.archive.org.

[4] Feuer, Alan. The Bitcoin Ideology. 14 Dec. 2013. The New York Times, https://web.archive.org.

[5] Nakamoto, Satoshi. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. www.bitcoin.org, 31 Oct. 2008, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf. 

[6] Confino, Jo. How Technology Has Stopped Evolution and Is Destroying the World. 11 July 2013. The Guardian, https://web.archive.org.

[7] Hanlon, Michael. The Golden Quarter. Edited by Ed Lake, 3 Dec. 2014, https://web.archive.org.

[8] Belluz, Julia, et al. “The 7 Biggest Problems Facing Science, According To 270 Scientists.” Vox, 14 July 2016, https://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process.