Moneytheism

Post       : Moneytheism
URL        : http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2013/06/10/moneytheism/
Posted     : June 10, 2013 at 12:12 pm
Author     : Jon Awbrey
Categories : Commerce, Communication, Economics,
              Moneytheism, Semiotics, Sign Relations

Re: Profit as Proxy for Value
At: http://mathbabe.org/2013/06/09/profit-as-proxy-for-value/

There is a deep and pervasive analogy between systems of commerce
and systems of communication, turning on their near-universal use
of symbola (images, media, proxies, signs, symbols, tokens, etc.)
to stand for pragmata (objects, objective values, the things we
really care about, or would really care about if we examined
our values in practice thoroughly enough).

Both types of sign-using systems are prey to the same sort of dysfunction or
functional disease — it sets in when their users confuse signs with objects
so badly that signs become ends instead of means.

There is a vast literature on this topic, once you think to go looking for it.
And it's a perennial theme in fable and fiction.

-- 

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