Money Is Magic And We Are All Magicians

How old were you when you found out you were a magician? This may sound ridiculous however hear me out. When we were children we claimed the value of things such as toys, candy,  games, accessories, etc and made trades between one another without any real currency. For example, personally I was a beyblade fanatic in my younger years and me and my cousins used to trade these parts of our respective Beyblades in efforts to make the strongest performing and coolest looking out of all others. 

These parts were nothing more than small pieces of plastic , metal , or even rubber in some cases. Which in real world currency may’ve cost the manufacturer less than a dollar in material to form each piece. However my cousins and I viewed these inexpensive little pieces or “parts” to our Beyblades as the closest thing to gold.  With each of us having our own set value for each piece we’d often find ourselves even trading things completely outside of beyblade pieces such as other toys , candy , or even more time to play on Mario Kart. Take a moment to truly think about the “Mario Kart time” , I just traded my physical item for a more mental “item” and this is a legitimate agreement between both parties and respected throughout the house.

Now if you had interactions like that in your childhood or maybe even today this is the magic. Without having a clue as to how much it actually cost to manufacture these pieces to our toys we decided whether a “spin tip” was worth something like a bag of more time on a game , another piece to a beyblade, or even something as simple as a few skittles. We single handedly saw these pieces and said “Hey , this is worth this much because we think it works/looks better than others” and immediately respected one another’s view contrary to any of the actual value of the piece.

Sitting north of New Guinea within the Caroline Islands, The Island Of Yap’s early system of currency had a similar structure. Instead of me and my cousins Beyblade pieces they used round pieces of Limestone. They had to resort to using limestone rather than something customary like coins due to the fact that the Island of Yap had no metal. Milton Freidman addressed this point in his article titled “The Island Of Stone Money” stating “[A]s their island yields no metal, they have had recourse to stone; stone, on which labour in fetching and fashioning has been expended, is as truly a representation of labour as the mined and minted coins of civilisation.” (Freidman , 1991).

These limestone discs called “Fei” served the meaning to the people of Yap that minted money does to us today. These ranged from sizes that some would be able to stick a pole through and roll to the desired place all the way to sizes that the strongest man on the planet let alone the island couldn’t move. The biggest piece of stone would be worth more than the smaller. I’m sure to some this sounds ridiculous but you can’t have anything close to proper economic structure without some sort of currency.

The Fei’s outrageous size and weight quickly led to a lack of physical movement of these discs when transactions were completed. Rather than moving them , the people of Yap verbally made their transactions and this change of ownership was respected. So imagine you were a farmer and I wanted to buy  “1,000 apples” from your farm. This would require a rather large piece of Fei. I’m no superhero , I couldn’t possibly roll my fei to you to complete this purchase.

In “The Island Of Stone Money” by NPR they introduce this notion that “One person gives it to another person. But the stone doesn’t move. It’s just that everybody in the village knows the stone now has a new owner.” (“Goldstein” & “Kestenbaum”, 2010)   Sound familiar?

Again a transaction between two parties that involves a physical item and a more mental “item” but is still legitimate and respected but this time it’s not a house we are talking about, it’s an entire village. Now let’s take a look into the Video Game world. The video game world has changed significantly over the past few decades , in older times people would find themselves going in-store to purchase things like video games , add-ons , or even just general gift cards. 

Times are different now , those same purchases we used to in-store for can all be purchased within the game its-self.  The typical person would think that once you buy a game that you’ve bought it and now have access to everything it offers. In older times maybe but over the some odd years that narrative has shifted. 

“Smash Bros. Ultimate Lets You Spend Money For In-Game Currency” an article written by John Coulson states “Microtransactions and paying hard-earned cash for virtual currency is rife in the mobile gaming world.”  ( Coulson , 2019).  Just about any game you buy today you are simply just buying access to the game itself you should almost expect to have to spend money in the games respective subcategories. Whether it be skins , special weapons , abilities , or even in game currency whatever the case may be you have to now purchase these items within the game itself. All can be done with the simple push of a few buttons , there is no real physical movement of these funds and “merchandise”. Similar to the Island of Yap’s ideology of their transactions with the larger discs of limestone.

The difference between the people of Yap’s system and video games is that you would give up ownership of your Fei , get your merchandise and the transaction is complete . In video games you often find yourself having to buy more than needed just to get what you wanted in the first place.  Sometimes they won’t allow you to flat out just pay for what you want. In “The Perils of In-Game Currency” by Jamie Madigan states “You know the drill: if you want to level up your battle pass or accelerate the construction on that barracks, you have to spend 100 gold coins. Only you can’t just buy 100 coins for one dollar. You have to buy 650 for five dollars. Now you’ve got 550 coins left and you’re minutes away from mortgaging your dog for more of those sweet, sweet in-app purchases.” (Madigan , 2019). Now you’ve taken more from yourself, having to buy more than you initially desired. 

Nevertheless you select “complete purchase” and instantaneously what you purchased is now in your inventory and the funds have been pulled from your account. When in actuality all you saw was that number in your bank account decrease and the item appears on your screen, again no physical movement of the funds.  That’s the magic of money , you are able to purchase merchandise no matter if they are physical items themselves or just a mental ownership (something you can’t physically possess).