Money isn’t real - a JCB is

A piece of 30mm steel plate or a pig is about as real as it is possible to get. A milling machine turning a piece of steel into a component that will go to making a JCB or a joint of pork joins it in this category. This is however no longer the basis of the British economy.

Today our economy is very much based on ‘the service sector’; ‘the finance sector’; design and innovation; retail and tourism. These have very clearly served us well since the removal of industry, manufacture and raw materials like coal from our economic base. However we are possibly in the process of learning that the route we have taken leaves us very vulnerable.

I am not an economist so I need to ensure I stay within my own areas of competence and exploring the idea of ‘reality’ is well within that.

I would much prefer to see our economy based on that which is real whatever anyone may believe about it; rather than one based in ‘the finance sector’ which ultimately depends on the beliefs people hold.

If everyone suddenly stops believing in the value of the £10 note I possess then it is a worthless piece of fancy patterned plastic. If confidence is lost in the meaning of whatever happens in the mysterious universe of banking when I give someone my credit card number that also is worthless – along with the figures I see when I log on to my bank accounts and the figure I am given for my investments for my pension. Ultimately they are electrical signals which register on a screen; and we all believe they are of value. While we believe this we can turn them into things which have absolute value like food and useful objects. Stop believing and they return to what they actually are: electrical signals turned into images on a screen. You cannot believe or disbelieve a JCB or a joint of pork in and out of existence: they are profoundly real at whatever level you care to look.

I certainly don’t want to return to a barter economy; but I would like to have a sense that the economic base of the country cannot be wiped out because we suddenly lose faith in money.