The Homicidal Bitchin’ that goes down in Every Kitchen


From the homicidal bitchin’
that does down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.

Democracy is coming
to the U.S.A.

Leonard Cohen

This post is inspired by Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, about how money is made of mass surveillance. I’m not overly impressed by the book, but there’s a section describing the Chinese Social Credit system which made me reflect on how we should determine — and how we actually determine — social status.

For the uninitiated, The Social Credit System is a “social score” that measures, in essence, how good a person you are (as determined by the Communist Party of China). It’s compiled automatically, without input or knowledge from the citizens themselves, on the basis of online behaviour: What you buy, who you communicate with, what topics you talk about. It’s enabled by mass surveillance, but the basic idea of keeping dossiers on social behaviour and using them for social control is much older than our current problems with online tracking. Think Stasi, the KGB, and all the stories of secret informants that came out of the Soviet era.

Essentially, it’s a government-run system of social status. Call it a class system (but don’t tell the Communist Party). By Western standards, it’s terrifying and Orwellian, and Zuboff’s description of the system is intended as a dystopia. She quotes the Economist to describe the systems social consequences:

People on the list can be prevented from buying aeroplane, bullet-train or first- or business-class rail tickets; selling, buying or building a house; or enrolling their children in expensive fee-paying schools. There are restrictions on offenders joining or being promoted in the party and army, and on receiving honours and titles.

China invents the digital totalitarian state — Economist — December 17, 2016

She goes on to describe the benefits of having a high social credit score:

Those with high scores receive honours and rewards … They can rent a car without a deposit, receive favourable terms on loans and apartment rentals, receive fast-tracking for visa permits, enjoy being showcased on dating apps, and a host of other perks.

Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, p.390

Dystopian it may be, but it got me thinking: How do we distribute the rewards of high social status here in Canada? Who gets social privilege in our society?

The answer should surprise no one: Money. Money is our system of social credit. Only people with money can buy aeroplane tickets or houses, or send their kids to private schools. Perversely, having money will gets you better mortgage terms from the bank or determine whether you qualify for a mortgage at all! We idolize the rich and we act as though the ability to make money is the mark of superior person — the more money, the more superior the person. Not having money is worse — without money, we are deprived of any number of privileges and comforts, including basic human needs like food or shelter.

That got me thinking even more: Is determining social status though wealth really a better system than determining it through social behaviour? Don’t we want to reward the people who act in socially positive ways rather than just rewarding the rich? Does that make the Chinese system better than our own?

I’m not here to defend the Chinese system. I think it’s terrifying. I think most Westerners would prefer equality — a fair system would distribute housing and aeroplane tickets more or less equally, not according to social status. That’s the American dream: Freedom and equality. The ability to make it on your own, no matter who you are.

But I think that’s how we ended up using money to represent social status. We’ve persuaded ourselves that we’ve actually built an equal society, and in doing so we’ve made ourselves blind to the ways that social status is actually determined. We believe in our ideals more than the reality we live in. By saying we have no class system, we have ignored how social status is actually determined. Like it or not, humans are incredibly sensitive to social status, and even the most egalitarian, communal organizations quickly and inevitably create a pecking order. We cannot create a fair system by ignoring status. Somebody has to speak first; someone has to take the first bite. Social status is our way of figuring out who deserves those privileges.

So what are our options? How should we determine social status? What’s fair? I can think of lots of ways that have been tried. Money. Popularity. Age. Heredity. Beauty. Strength. Intelligence. The Chinese system, terrifying as it is, assigns privilege on the basis of moral quality.

On a practical level, we make status judgments on a person-to-person basis. We compare ourselves to each other, and decide for ourselves whether we are superior or inferior, and then modify our behaviour based on that judgment. There are dozens or hundreds of social cues that go into this judgment: All the factors I mentioned above and plenty more. The important thing though, is that it is our judgment. The terrifying thing about the Social Credit system is that the system’s judgment of our worth may not match our own. We may be forced into a status that does not match our self-image. Money is harder to argue with. We may not like the amount we have, but we know how much is there. I’m not sure that makes money a better measure of status, but it may explain why we are more comfortable with it. Or, perhaps we are just more familiar with it.

I’ve struggled to think of a fair way to determine status, and I’m not sure there is one. Our sense of status is given to us by the culture we live in, and it’s immensely difficult to try and change it. There’s nothing about our culture — or any other — that says status has to be fair. Our individual assessments of status may be self-determined, but there are any number of small social pressures that let us know when others disagree with our self-assessed status. If we “choose” a status that doesn’t match social expectations, we may fool a few people (and ourselves), but in the long run, we’ll inevitably come across as foolish or delusional (two very low status images) if we act too far outside our station.

I’m not sure how social status should work, and that bothers me. I started writing this piece because of an intuition that the ways we determine who deserves to be high status could be improved. At the end of the day, I don’t think wealth is a good way to distribute housing and aeroplane tickets, and the idea that they could be distributed on the basis of some higher ideal of social worth appeals to me. At the same time, the Chinese Social Credit System is too horrifying to contemplate. I doubt any centralized institution of social status could be fair or workable. But, if we don’t think consciously about how social status works, we will be at the mercy of those who do, whether they are Chinese software engineers or American capitalists.

Review: The Clean Money Revolution by Joel Solomon

The idea of “Clean Money” is an attractive one.  We are intimately familiar with the harms that concentrated money can cause, whether it’s the corrosive effect of money on politics, the ability of large corporations to buy legal immunity by dragging out the legal process indefinitely, or the fact that the financial system is set up to benefit the 1% at the expense of the 99%.  We are less familiar with the ways that concentrated money can be used in positive ways.

Joel Solomon’s The Clean Money Revolution provides passionate proof that money is a tool, and it’s the quality of the people using it that determines the quality of the effects it has.  It’s at once a moral plea to those with money to recognize the power that money grants them and a memoir of Joel’s successes in living that morality by helping others put their money (and Joel’s) to good use.

It’s hopeful and inspiring in its attempt to envision a world where our financial and social systems evolve gracefully into a more sustainable, stable, just future rather than collapsing around our ears into chaos and anarchy.  In a world where corporate money ensures that governments stay impotent against the various social and environmental crises that might cost those corporations their quarterly profits, the idea that Clean Money used well can be a force for positive change is a refreshing, if idealistic vision.

And, thanks to Joel’s intimate knowledge in the arcane arts of investing and business, it’s also a seductively convincing vision.  Joel knows how money works.  He knows how to use it wisely, and he’s also not afraid to point out how it can be (and is being) used badly.  He’s candidly aware that the current level of socially aware investing is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of capital that is pulling in the other direction.  And yet, his book is the Clean Money Revolution, and he believes that the revolution has started.  He believes that, at the very least, there is a path forward that will shift vast amounts of money from the old, profit-at-any-cost mentality to a new, more sustainable and socially responsible mindset.  And he believes that this transition will be shepherded by the Millennials as they take over management of the funds from the Boomer generation.  As a Millennial, I find that flattering.

Unfortunately, I also find it unrealistic.  And, to be honest, on an intellectual level at least, I think so does Joel.  He comments that if we use only our intellect, we have no reason to believe we will be able to avoid the social and environmental collapse that is the consequence of unsustainable use of resources and misuse of money.  To be successful, his revolution requires spiritual fortitude and a deep sense of purpose, both on a personal level and in our culture.  Wise words from a member of the hippy generation:  Change comes from the heart, not from the head.

I have two major criticisms of his book, both of which are intellectual.  Thus, I hope they will be useful for understanding the flaws in the book, but not fatal to the intent of it.

The first major criticism is that it relies on those who have wealth to develop the spiritual conscience necessary to invest their wealth responsibly.  And it’s not just some of the wealthy.  It must be all of them, or at least a large majority.  There must be a cultural shift among the very wealthy that pushes them in the direction of “Clean Money”.  He believes this will happen when control of the wealth shifts to Millennials.  In other words, it will happen through inheritance.

Unfortunately, a key part of Joel’s own relationship to money is defined by the fact that he inherited his wealth young, while he was still in his idealistic 20’s, and before he had been fully groomed as an heir to his family’s fortune.  And, most of the other Clean Money investors whose stories he tells share similar backgrounds.  There is no reason to expect that most of the Millennial heirs to the $100 trillion that will change generational hands will inherit young.  There’s much reason to think that, in addition to inheriting wealth, the rarefied group of multi-million dollar heirs will also inherit their parents’ strongly profit-driven values.  Sadly, a plan that counts on the majority of those in power to naturally use that power for good is not a very good plan.

The second criticism is perhaps the more serious one.  Joel correctly identifies wealth inequality as one of the most serious issues that must be solved.  It’s an issue that directly relates to money.  Yet, the book advocates that wealthy investors can have it all:  They can invest Clean Money and still profit at the end of it.  Perhaps they do not take as much profit, but the model is still a capitalistic one in which investments are ultimately expected to pay off monetarily.  Such an approach cannot solve the issue of inequality — not alone at any rate.

The reason is structural.  It’s a fundamental law of money that wealth generates money.  This is the way that the wealthy have lived for generations, and it’s the reason why the wealthy stay wealthy.  Once you have a pile of wealth, you hire a money manager to invest the wealth and you live off the profits of the investments.  The bigger the pile of wealth, the bigger the profits you have to live on.  This is the principle that endowments, hedge funds and foundations operate on:  The principal is invested, and only the profits are spent, thus ensuring the perpetual financial security of the person or organization that owns the wealth.  It’s a sound financial strategy.  Unfortunately, it’s also the fundamental cause of wealth inequality:  The more quickly wealth gets accumulated, the less that wealth is available for everyone else.

Joel has lots to say about this.  He writes extensively about spending down the principal, about ensuring that foundations invest their principal as Clean Money, and about divesting money that is supporting harmful organizations.  Unfortunately, as important as all those things are, they are still all in service of profit:  Endowments are still intended to preserve wealth, and even the strategies for spending down principal involve making investments that are ultimately intended to recoup with a profit.  No matter how well the money is invested, it’s still expected to accumulate over time.

Such an approach is impossible.  Inequality builds up pressure, and historically the only ways that pressure is released is through appropriation (as in the French Revolution), warfare (as in WWII), or inflation.  Of these, inflation is the safest — though still tumultuous — option.  Only when the rate of inflation rises above the rate of return that endowments generate — only then does the distribution of wealth become more equal:  The inflation in everyone else’s wealth out-paces the natural tendency of wealth to grow.  In such a situation, the return on investment is no longer “profitable”, because the real value of the wealth at the end of the investment is less than the value that that wealth would have had if it has just been left on its own.  The Clean Money Revolution does not solve this problem — wealth inequality is inevitable as long as our central banks maintain policies that are designed to minimize or prevent inflation.

Thus, the Clean Money Revolution is not the panacea that Joel hopes it is.  It’s not enough of a revolution. We cannot escape the financial, environmental, and social crises that face us solely through enlightened investment.  There is more to the story (there always is).  But … intellectual flaws aside, there is still much value in stories of hope and inspiration that Joel writes about.  Just because Clean Money is not the solution does not mean it cannot be part of a solution.  Investing generously and selflessly is certainly better than investing blindly and selfishly.  Even if we must shrink our collective wealth for the sake of surviving sustainably, the organizations and institutions that help us live sustainably must still be grown — and will inevitably produce financial profits while they grow.  Clean Money must be part of that growth.

On a more personal level, the book is not just inspiring in general; it inspired me to seek out the environment in which Joel nurtured his skills with Clean Money:  Hollyhock.  As a documentary filmmaker, I’m driven by the desire to create social change.  And I’m also painfully aware of how difficult it is to find money to support that social change.  And, once I’ve created a documentary, I’m aware that it needs to be seen by the people with the power to help create social change:  People with money and big ideas.  If nothing else, Joel’s book has convinced me that I can find all of those things at Hollyhock.  I’ve signed up for a workshop at Hollyhock called Story, Money, Impact.  Here’s hoping that my journey there helps me find people who believe in Joel’s vision:  The vision of Clean Money.