The Money Issue

Volume 10 Issue 4, November 2010

By large or small effect, every aspect of human and social interaction is affected by money. From the pursuit of a higher education to satisfying daily subsistence needs, and yes, even the production of an issue of Blueprint, money plays an important role. Its influence seems inescapable.

In seeking submissions for this issue, common tropes arose that one would expect from a largely student readership – worries over money’s absence, difficulties that come from attempts to procure it, dreams of a life where it was plentiful or had no effect. It would be incorrect to suppose that that a ‘starving student’ mindset alone provides the impetus for these concerns. Money is pervasive regardless of its accessibility to any single person; the power it wields is alone cause for insecurity.

It is tempting to imagine a utopian world where money holds no effect, where true equity exists without financial bias. Though this world seems unlikely, especially in a capitalist system, a society forged on this ideal is a certain possibility even without large systemic change; the processes of creating community, art and learning can easily occur within this framework.

A seminal music quartet once asked us to imagine all the things we could do if we had a little money in this rich man’s world. I would ask, in a world is defined by money, what can come from a life without?

— Morgan Alan, Editor-in-Chief