cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/5944604
Hey I am currently in the privileged position to think about what I do with the money I saved as an emergency fund. Do I put it in an account that gets interest so less gets lost to inflation?
But from my understanding the bank can only pay that interest because they loaned the money to someone that uses it to exploit people labor or extracts rent from them etc.
Where I live saving for retirement is currently not that big of a thing because its something the state manages, but what do folks do that dont have that?
Should anarchists buy stocks or what else should they do with money that exceeds their safety needs?
Practically speaking, not investing your wealth means giving money to the state (who currently will just give it to the richest and most powerful) and the richest and most powerful.
The entire monetary system is set up to take from the bottom 80-90% through inflation and give that money to anyone who invests and profits off of debt.
I know it sounds stupid, but that’s the way it is.
The only other option is immediately putting your savings into gold, practical investments (like a solar setup) or commodities.
As long as you hold any significant amounts of savings, it slowly (and recently more rapily) goes to the state and the rich. Nevermind your wages are constantly decreasing too. You could make up for that by investing. You could see it as just getting back what’s rightfully yours anyway.
Reality is silly like that in an inflationary monetary system.
Its capitalism that’s the problem, not inflation.
Inflation, as you say, forces people to lend money to other people. If there was extremely high inflation, there would be no hoarding of cash. Everyone would be interested in giving their money away as soon as they obtained some. That’s a good thing.
Poor people can’t afford to lend money when they’re struggling just to eat and make rent. It’s not a viable way for them to “keep up” with inflation.
But in a sense you’re right: inflation (by itself) isn’t the problem. The problem is that wages don’t keep up with it. Because the labor movement has been failing not only to make gains, but to prevent failures (e.g. keep our effective wages from going down). Most forms of capitalist passive income keep up with inflation by design, which is no accident.