Life & Wisdom Quote by John Ralston Saul

Money isn’t “not real” in the airy, self-help sense; Saul is taking a scalpel to the aura we wrap around markets. The line is built to deflate monetary mystique: by calling money a “conscious agreement,” he yanks it out of nature and puts it back into politics, culture, and collective faith. Money works not because it’s objective, but because we keep consenting to a shared story about what counts, what’s owed, and what can be traded away.

The subtext is a warning against treating economic systems like weather. If money is an agreement, then it can be renegotiated - and it can be abused. Inflation, debt crises, austerity, speculative bubbles: these aren’t random mechanical failures; they’re stress tests of belief and governance. Saul’s phrasing also needles technocratic authority. Economists and financiers often speak as if value is discovered, not decided. He insists value is measured, not inherent, and measurement is a human choice that carries moral consequences.

Context matters: Saul’s broader work critiques managerial elites and the habit of outsourcing civic judgment to “experts.” In that light, the quote reads less like a clever paradox and more like a democratic dare. Stop treating money as sacred. Ask who sets the terms of the agreement, who benefits from its blind spots, and whose lives get discounted when “value” is reduced to a number.