{"id":673,"date":"2026-07-28T20:13:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.masrampinyo.net\/?p=673"},"modified":"2026-08-19T22:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T22:31:09","slug":"el-culto-a-la-codicia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.masrampinyo.net\/en\/el-culto-a-la-codicia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cult of Greed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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First, they created giant monsters with feet of clay that devoured everything in their path, but I found shelter and alms beneath their swollen belly and I kept silent.<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they hijacked the land and institutions, but they did not cross onto my small plot and I said nothing.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later they went after the most vulnerable under the guise of globalization. They precaritized their lives and denied them a future, but everything began to prove cheaper for me and I looked away.<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now they come for me, for my space and my future, claiming they belong to them, but there is no one left to deny it.<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Free adaptation of Martin Niem\u00f6ller's<\/strong> famous quote denouncing passivity in the face of the horror of Nazism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the 8th century BC, there existed a powerful monarch who ruled the kingdom of Phrygia (in modern-day Turkey) whose reign was characterized by immense wealth derived from the vast natural mineral resources of the region, particularly in the form of alluvial gold washed down by nearby rivers. It was the richness of one of these rivers, the Pactolus, that funded the dynasties of Phrygia and later Lydia, giving rise to the appearance of the first minted coins in human history\u2014thanks to the gold extracted directly from this river around the 7th century BC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Money was born, and with it, a curse. For the Phrygian monarch of history was none other than King Midas, to whom the gods granted the power to transform into gold everything he touched in response to his greed. A power that would ultimately turn into tragedy: upon turning into gold, everything he touched was stripped of all human pleasure, condemning him to die of starvation as he watched bread harden like metal against his lips, wine turn into liquid gold before he could swallow it, and meats become solid pieces of jewellery. His young daughter, seeing him so wretched, ran to console him, and upon embracing her, Midas transformed her into a lifeless golden statue, losing her forever too. Crushed by his tragedy\u2014realizing that he would die rich, yet completely starving and alone\u2014Midas begged Dionysus to divest him of this \"cursed gift.\" The god, taking pity, ordered him to travel to the source of the Pactolus River and submerge his head and hands in its waters to purify himself\u2014a task Midas fulfilled, transferring the power from his body to the waters of the river, which from that moment on became a \"river of gold\".  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the gold carried by the river's current stemmed from the rich subsoil through which its waters flowed rather than the king's purifying bath, his curse would end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those first gold coins\u2014born as a medium of exchange to foster trade\u2014would eventually emancipate themselves until they transformed into a value in and of themselves, completely detached from their origin. They suffered the king's tragic curse: converting everything they touched\u2014housing and all manner of essential goods for humanity\u2014into abstract financial assets devoid of any real or functional use value, becoming, like the king's tender daughter, a lifeless object abandoned, idolized by some and inaccessible to the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its frantic race to devour everything it touched, financial greed absorbed properties and land; it absorbed the beauty of art\u2014condemning it to be crammed into dark freeports as a reserve asset, far from the midday light and the stirring of the soul for which it was created; it absorbed the real economy, which always offers something in return; and it absorbed human honesty, cooperation, and solidarity, transforming them into plunder, exploitation, and servitude in a strange alchemy of emptiness\u2014enriching itself at the expense of the fragility and precariousness of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the modern financial monster, hostage to its scavenger instinct, participates less and less in the productive economy, limiting itself to feeding on the dying corpses left behind by crises, debt, unaffordable housing, and the economic and political collapse of communities and governments. A predatory monster that, with the satisfaction and insolence of knowing itself to be king of the jungle, celebrates its strength and prowess while concealing that it is not the lion it claims to be, but merely a vulture that constantly requires weak, plundered, and cornered victims to devour them without resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the monster should not be confused with its appearance\u2014a malicious and alien entity inhabiting distant, incomprehensible spaces for the ordinary citizen, such as stock exchange floors, the vast glass offices of skyscrapers, or the endlessly glowing digital screens filled with numbers and charts. It must be glimpsed in its essence: one of the poisons that infect the human soul, oozing through its fissures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as the Church did not renounce its own greed\u2014accumulating lands, temples, and riches while turning a deaf ear to its Messiah, who proclaimed that whoever wished to follow him should strip themselves of all possessions, and that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, being overcome by fury only in the presence of the money changers in the temple\u2014neither does the ordinary citizen. Watching the baseness of the financial world through a Manichaean lens, complacent in a false moral superiority, the average person rarely hesitates for a moment when a crack unexpectedly appears in their environment\u2014a lottery prize, an inheritance, or a new cryptocurrency\u2014that allows them to make money through speculation, rushing to extract maximum benefit and return with the same speed and despotism as a major investment fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the complicity of all, without the globally shared ultimate goal\u2014fanciful or not\u2014of enriching ourselves through the alchemy of money's emptiness, which continuously generates money out of nothing for our benefit; peacefully watching our assets grow while observing with a certain disdain and condescension the rest trapped in a \"rat race\" we despise, struggling to survive in an environment that is often hostile, precarious, and exhausting, and that will eventually consume them\u2014the global financial monster would never have been legitimized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"bitcoin\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A group of tourists contemplating the famous work \"Golden Smoke\" by Japanese artist Satoshi Nakamoto.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ni\u00f1o<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image taken by photographer Kevin Carter in Sudan, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

Accessed 1 times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 8th century BC, there existed a powerful monarch who ruled the kingdom of Phrygia (in modern-day Turkey) whose reign was characterized by immense wealth derived from the vast natural mineral resources of the region, particularly in the form of alluvial gold washed down by nearby rivers. It was the richness of one of these rivers, the Pactolus, that funded the dynasties of Phrygia and later Lydia, giving rise to the appearance of the first minted coins in human history...<\/p>\n

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