Money Magic for Anti-Capitalists
Money work, or money magic, is among the top two reasons that people turn to magic. The other, of course, is love.
Capitalism's fucked up. It isolates us from another. It means that some people are unable to meet their need for connection, food, clothing, and shelter.
It also means that some people's needs go unmet while a small group of people take and waste too much.
Enter magic, with its emphasis on personal power. For some forms of extra capitalist witchcraft, this is a form of self empowerment.
This sort of magic is a spiritual extension of the American bootstraps mentality. It doesn't seek to empower the user to dismantle what oppresses them. It's assimilationist magic. It's #girlboss magic. It uses personal power to become part of the dominant power structure.
Its purveyors are usually privileged, and have the wealth to reproduce their beliefs. As such this has become the entirety of what many believe magic to be.
You light the candles. You focus on what you want. Then BOOM you'll be able to afford that four-day business seminar. Their underpaid nannies Montessori-style home school their kids when they're away.
You can magic your shitty boss into retirement. Then you can take his place and terrorize your BIPOC staff in his stead.
This is who and what this type of capitalist witchcraft is for.
These certainly aren't the only people around here who need money. They certainly aren't the people who need it most.
Yet their morals around magic and money have permeated too much of the conversation and for too long.
Money is a Necessity, but Capitalism Sucks
What's worse is they're not the only people who need money and do magic about it.
Many of the books on money magic available are in this capitalist vein. Much of the writing in general about money magic fails to interrogate why there isn't enough to go around in the first place. It does not make collective solutions to our problems. It does not attack the problems of capitalism at the root, or even contextualize them.
But even so, I can't really look too harshly on this fact. We often approach money magic from a place of dire need. The rent is due. The food stamps got cut. The lights get cut off on Friday at noon if you don't pay by Wednesday at 1pm.
I get it.
I came to money work as a subsistence stripper living in a collective house with 12 other queers. Then I got sick, like catastrophic sick. I went to the ER twice in a week. I was fully out of commission for a month and a half. I was down to my last $100.
In a new city, with a fucked up body, and a set of off-brand Pleaser heels, I worked my roots until they worked.
Capitalism be damned, I was gunna get mine, honey! Ok?!
Taking Action to Get Your Needs Met Can Be Radical, Taking Too Much Never Is
#girlboss money magic and the necessary magic of the oppressed are two very different things.
Taking action to meet your needs under racial capitalism is radical. Improving your conditions when all your life you were told that you deserved less than nothing is radical. Making sure our communites survive the unsurvivable with help from spirit and ancestors is radical. Generally.
Anyone, ANYONE, can take too much. Anyone can become a capitalist.
There's a major emphasis on magic for wealth in white feminist magic spaces that is...well fucked up. This is true despite the fact that patriarchy is a material oppression for white women.
I'm wary of magic undertaken to put yourself on the top or the heap. I'm wary of magic that requires the oppression of others to work. And some money magic requires exactly that.
Our Magic Reflects Our Ethics
I believe that the way we practice reflects who we are.
If you are someone who does a lot of dominance work, then you are someone who wants to control others. If you're someone who does work around peace and healing, then you are a person striving for peace.
These practices aren't always ethically neutral. We all need to check in with ourselves from time to time to make sure that we're reflecting our highest principles in our work.
Here are some questions I've used to check in with myself before starting money work:
Who Helped You Define Abundance?
Where do you fit within capitalist hierarchies? Do you come from a family with money? What did you learn during your childhood about the roll of money in having "a good life?"
Our understandings about abundance, and our own deservingness effect the way we undertake money magic.
It's been helpful to me to be aware of what I believe abundance to be as I undertake money work.
How Much Do You Need?
No but seriously. How much do you actually need?
Are you striving for comfort and ease, or do you want the kind of money that you can horde. Be honest with yourself. Money work is good. It can be completely ethically neutral, or even positive.
But when your comfort means others have to suffer, then it's no longer neutral.
Like any other relationship, its important to make sure I'm not taking more than I give.
What Will You Do When You Have It?
This is the kicker!
Who will I you become when you get what you want? Will you become the person who funds a bunch of GoFundMes or the person who plays the stock market?
It matters how you'll spend the money. It matters who you're accountable to about it. It matters why you want that amount of money in the first place.
I'm not saying you should second guess yourself or ask for less than what you need. I'm saying that our needs reflect the needs of others in our communities as well.
We must think of the world around us when we talk about money, not solely ourselves.
The demands of capitalism distort so many things. It doesn't have to corrupt our practices.
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