"Interior Finance" is left side and engages the qualitative aspects of money and our relationships with it. It can be intensely personal, but it's more than just personal. The "We" of "Interior Finance" concerns shared money-when two or more have common issues with intertwined financial components. You know, little stuff like, like education, legal systems, security, trade, ecology or public works. It is not just "touchy feely" pap, it is the essence of modern civilization.
No joke. Money's social interior is big. Very, very big. It locates where two or more folks have common interests with limited means requiring decisions. This includes any and all social issues with financial implications, including culture, security, social safety nets and, even, matters of birth and death. From friendship to family, to jobs, health and late life medical care, environment, race, air lines, housing, public utilities, businesses, political entities and so on, including money's very own essence, "Interior Finance" concerns the manners and means of our financial webs. Of course, just as with personal financial literacy, our numerous communities ultimately demand social financial literacy as survival skills.
We all know this. We just don't talk about it. We try budget band-aids and miscellaneous manipulations but presume unlimited means and irreconcilable differences between "us" and "them." "They" are always evil. Too bad, "They" are always "We"-and "We" have problems. Yet, we ignore the essential interior aspects of our community's financial infrastructures, point fingers and resist responsibility. Alas. Where is the dialogue?
Or even the functionality?
Looking past blaming and name-calling, the numbers are just not working. We can't wish water into draining reservoirs nor balance budgets with wishful thinking. Look around at both the private and public sectors. Structural financial crises abound. Schools and hospitals, welfare systems, disintegrating physical infrastructures. All demand attention. All warn that deferred maintenance is expensive. Hmm. So are the unasked questions and unchallenged assumptions.
It may be the Invisible [Interior] Hand at work, but systemic failures have grotesque implications. Since money issues include everything from A to Z, (abortion to zoning), perhaps we should be having conversations about scarce resource allocations, balance and vision, sustainability and implications.
What are the social costs of our notions of compensation for injury? What do those tax codes really cost in codified overhead and under productive brains? How do we allocate extraordinary medical capacities in a world of financial limitations? Or, even, (gasp, horrors) is the concept of "equality" a particularly effective cultural guiding light? We can't have it all. Are these truly the decisions we intended to make? Where is the dialogue?
Add last century's biggest fuss, the Cold War. Communism failed. It was financially illiterate. Capitalism and market places are compassion challenged. They simply do not "care" about caring. Not their job, of course, but how can we distinguish between marketplace economies and marketplace communities? We cannot monetize compassion with debt-based currency. Yet, with all the political noise, it is hard to hear money's pleas for respect and intelligence. Where is the dialogue?
Interior Finance includes money itself. Remember, all "money" concepts are social, premised on the existence of "others." In profound senses, the term "my money" is an oxymoron, a literal non sequitur, perhaps even a bit silly. If "your money" has only to do with you, and you alone, then you might as well get out the Monopoly game and declare yourself a millionaire. Who would care? If others don't believe your money, it's worthless. We can't eat gold.
As individuals, money engages our relationship with the world. Money gives us the ability to function in remarkable ways-to sell our best stuff and buy or hire our necessities and our not-so-good stuff. Money links means with needs. Money enables comfort, experience, access, and so on. It also entails duties, responsibilities, perspectives, and so on. It identifies and enables what we exchange, count or store in relationship with others.