Commentary

Makes the world go ’round

April 10, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Is it love or money that makes the world go ’round? Is it time to go back to strict bartering – my tomatoes for your wine? Fred’s bird feeder for Sally’s salads?

France’s cheese for our winter coats?

Certainly, it looks as though money has seen its day when the whole world’s finances might crash into the ocean at any moment.

So, we may have to replace money with something else. 

Back to Love, maybe? Trust? Suddenly and inexplicably taking care of each other because whoever set fire to the current global currency storm got swallowed up in it and is no longer living in Kansas?

Awash. We are awash in stories about money and killing and I am hoping killing or the threat of killing will not win the crown for making the World go ’round. That could happen, I guess: the threat or fact of deadly invasion used as the currency for confiscating the mineral and water riches of one country by another. 

After all, look how hopeless governments are. They never get it right because – instantly! – power corrupts and it seems there are no exceptions. Corruption can be actual material gain or heightened prestige. It can be threats or influence – that’s called lobbying, right? 

Seems it is impossible to be an honest, balanced, intelligent incorruptible leader, chief, or king. Leaders all want to be loved with truth or at least the appearance of truth; they want to be told they’re doing a good job and that isn’t possible because they want all that from people of material wealth and high prestige. 

Leadership is a matter of balance and counter-balance, with the almost impossible ability to get the priorities right; the ability for logical thinking that sees how to forestall crises long before they dig in. The well-loved “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure,” can never work if the demands of the cure will only add to, not heal the crises. Everywhere we look are examples of this: no brilliant leader; only terrifying cures.

Could be it is up to us, we the vast majority of the population, who are financially challenged, disabled yet willing to work; beleaguered renters and would-be shoppers; those who have jobs and often more than one job, but are still lining up at food banks to feed their kids.

Summer is coming and there could be homes built off-the-grid, built to blend with nature, not confront and destroy – a straw bale house, for example, which is made of sustainable materials (e.g. straw), warmer, more efficient and fire resistant than ordinary houses. 

If people want to live in huge new homes, they ought to be required to build on land which is suitable – not precious farmland nor fragile environments with good water and precious wildlife.

Go north and find land that qualifies as reasonable for your mansion. If there is too much distance between you and the entertainment of the big city – build it yourself – dance halls, restaurants, art centres, but all of them must be made with an eye towards how they’re made. All the power for this budding new village – or town – you are building must come from renewable sources. Keep in mind that there are incinerators for garbage that do not produce noxious fumes but do produce enough power to keep the lights on in homes and there are other recycling systems that can recycle 98 per cent of what anyone calls garbage.

Add some streets but make sure the pavement has been thought out and that vehicles are powered by the growing number of alternatives – my mechanic reckons hydrogen is the future. Take your lead from him and install no other fuel.

Dress your town with flower-filled gardens that pollinators love, not pristine but fruitless lawns. Have the place a-buzz with life, real life growing, renewing the earth.

Set your standards high.

If you build it, others will come from where they are forbidden to build, where they should not and they will see your wisdom, which, when they doubt and try to corrupt your vision – just shut them down.

All these ideas are already in use, all ready for you to adapt to that big house you long for and the village that becomes a town because you don’t want to live in isolation.

In this century so far but still far from the emancipated future of the sci-fi movies I/we love to watch, we are doing everything wrong. We are rapidly going backwards as a society in spite of our digital-ness (sic) because no one knows what makes the world go ’round. 

Our priorities are muddled with greed and pain, based, maybe without a plan, on medievalism that insists on too much for some and too little for others.

The author of the current global monetary circus advises staying strong and waiting it out, with the promise that wealth for the good guys is coming amid the chaos – not to worry about the decline and crash of stocks – all will be well, where well is deserved. And the others who do less well can scramble and beg…

Maybe, not too long from now, when reality well and truly checks in, what makes the world go ’round will surprise us.

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