R-word blog

https://rword.substack.com/p/theyre-just-not-jaded

Wherever markets and money have reached most deeply, we find the stingiest, least trusting, most cynical, and loneliest people. They may have material wealth, of a kind, but true wealth has been stripmined from them. The compensatory baubles of financial wealth can never truly substitute for the lost social and spiritual capital.

While of course there may be other explanations, wherever cynicism and distrust are rampant, it is likely that this form of social-spiritual capital has been stripped, directly or indirectly, for profit.

What was stripped away can be reclaimed. How do we rebuild relations of trust, trust in each other and trust in human nature? One way is to reverse the process of monetization that destroyed those relations in the first place. How? By restoring gift culture; that is, non-monetized ways of connecting gifts and needs.

at least observation on how "everything turned to money and then money sucked away" feels very true, with my limited expirience