Back in the day of the hunter/gatherer there was no money. Ultimately, a person couldn't own more than they could carry. So hunter/gatherer tribes had different ideas than we do about ownership. Native Americans are a great example. Some tribes considered it an honor and skill to steal. Drove the white people crazy!

About twelve thousand years ago some folks figured out how to grow crops and domesticate animals. About that same time we added the dog to the human "toolbox". Our new tools enabled herding, growing and private property. Suddenly the place to grow our crops became very important, and we needed to keep track of our animals. These advances made us start seeing possessions in a new way. In fact, possessions became very important because the quality and type of your possessions became a life and death matter. It even evolved that we started "owning" each other and wealth could be built through "owning" a family, or even slaves.

Civilizations developed around the new concepts. Wikipedia has a nice article on the history of money if you really want the details!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money

Every change in our attitudes and concepts created changes in civilizations and what we were able to accomplish. The whole history of war that we are taught in schools is really a history of ownership. But what I'm interested in is how the evolution of money changed our perceptions of who we are and what we are capable of creating collectively.

In one sense, money has been a real pain for people. It creates a dramatic have and have-not system that feels quite immovable in an individual's lifetime. We don't even want to start thinking about all the folks who have been hurt by not having money, or by losing it. But if we look at the evolution of it, we can find some interesting stuff. Here are a few little details.

After Christianity took hold in the European world there was a big problem in bible interpretation. Christians have the old testament and the new testament in their bible. The Jewish bible is what we call the old testament. Christians interpreted their Bible to say that lending money with interest was wrong, so banking of this type was illegal/immoral for any Christian to do. Jewish people read their book differently and did not see lending money at interest as evil. So the Jews were able to lend money. This did two things: It enabled the growth of economies (because now people who were not born into money could get a loan in the right circumstances) and it gave Jewish people a certain sigma which still haunts them to this day.

One way or the other, though, the ability to lend and borrow money allowed civilizations to evolve into a new type of wealth. Lots of poor people were still getting hurt, but merchants, stores and trade could now be created across the world. It was an evolution in economics.

Another little story is about corporations. Before the corporation was a legal entity merchants had to take huge risks to send ships out exploring the world for goods. You could get together a crew and a ship, but when it sailed out of the bay, your future was in the hands of the winds and fate. Either your ship came in, or it never came back.

The corporation, though, was a bunch of folks getting together and sharing the risk. Twenty guys get together and send out 20 ships. 15 of them come back, and they all share in the profit. Instead of 5 guys being ruined, and 15 guys making a killing, they all gained a nice steady income. The legalization of the corporation allowed a tiny cold little island off northern Europe to become a world power!

Another economic evolution happened in the US in the early part of the 20th Century. It was the beginning of direct sales companies. This leap has been a revolution in wealth for the little guy equal to that of the corporations. As with all evolution, it started out slow with a few companies such as Tupperware and the vitamin company that eventually became Amway. It spawned a frenzy in pyramid schemes in the 60's, and has launched many significant products for our country.

This is a very big step forward because it allows regular people to start and run a small business with a minimum of the risk involved in a brick-and-morter business. One huge point about network marketing is that the average guy can join and start a business --and fail-- WITHOUT LOSING EVERYTHING. They might lose a couple hundred bucks, or a couple thousand bucks, but not everything! Just as the corporation minimized risk for the wealthy, network marketing minimizes risk for the little guy. People can succeed, regular people, and make millions.

As in anything new, network marketing gets a lot of bad press. People don't have it in perspective and get very upset when they lose a little money, instead of being excited that they didn't lose everything!

This goes on today. I read a lot of negative posts online about how all network marketing is a scam because someone lost a little money, or knows someone who lost a little money. But if you put it in the perspective of a growing and evolving system, you see that this is a crazy perception. If a guy goes out and starts a traditional business, and fails, he'll lose everything: his life savings, his home, probably his relationships, everything (trust me, I know this from experience!). Network marketing is to the regular guy what the legalization of corporations were to the wealthy!!! This is really really big! This is stupendous! This is something for all of us to benefit from.