Frames of Reference: How Money, Power, and Propaganda Shape What We See
Introduction: The Invisible Architecture
We like to believe we make rational decisions about money, power, and politics. In reality, we rarely engage with these things directly. We experience them through frames of reference — invisible structures that shape what feels normal, possible, moral, or inevitable.
Once you understand frames, money stops looking like a neutral tool, power stops looking accidental, and propaganda stops looking obvious. More unsettling still, you begin to see how deeply you participate in maintaining the very systems you think you’re observing from the outside.
This article explores how frames of reference operate in three domains that quietly govern modern life: money, power, and propaganda.
1. Money: The Most Successful Shared Illusion
Money has no intrinsic value. This is not controversial — economists agree on it — yet emotionally, money feels as real as gravity.
That’s the frame at work.
The Money Frame
From early childhood, we are trained to experience money as:
- Security
- Worth
- Success
- Freedom
- Survival
The frame teaches us that:
- Time should be traded for money
- Money should be accumulated
- Lack of money equals personal failure
Within this frame, questions like “Why is housing unaffordable?” are easier to ask than “Why is shelter treated as a speculative asset?” The latter threatens the frame itself.
What the Frame Hides
- Money is created by policy, not nature
- Debt is someone else’s asset
- Scarcity is often engineered
- Inflation is not equally experienced
Once you see money as a lens, not a law, different questions become possible:
- Who controls issuance?
- Who benefits from inflation?
- Why are some forms of debt punished while others are rewarded?
The frame doesn’t collapse — but it loosens.
2. Power: The Art of Not Being Seen
Power rarely announces itself. In fact, the most effective power structures are those that convince people they are free.
The Power Frame
Most people imagine power as:
- Governments
- Police
- Corporations
- Armies
But real power operates upstream, shaping:
- What options exist
- What conversations feel realistic
- What futures seem imaginable
Power works best when it becomes background reality.
Structural vs. Visible Power
Visible power enforces rules.
Structural power decides which rules are thinkable.
If you’re arguing within a system about how it should be run, you’re already inside its frame.
Power doesn’t need to silence you — it only needs to define the menu of acceptable ideas.
3. Propaganda: When the Frame Speaks
Propaganda is not just lies. In fact, the most effective propaganda rarely involves falsehoods at all.
Modern Propaganda Works By:
- Repetition, not argument
- Emotion, not evidence
- Framing, not coercion
It answers questions before you ask them.
The Key Insight
Propaganda doesn’t tell you what to think.
It tells you how to think — and what not to notice.
When outrage is constant, attention is controlled.
When fear is normalized, obedience feels like safety.
The frame doesn’t force belief. It makes alternatives feel absurd.
4. Why These Three Reinforce Each Other
Money, power, and propaganda form a self-reinforcing loop:
- Money concentrates power
- Power shapes narratives
- Narratives justify the distribution of money
Once stabilized, the system doesn’t need overt violence. People police themselves — socially, emotionally, psychologically.
Breaking any one frame threatens the others.
5. Is There a Way Out?
Not an exit — but a stance.
You don’t escape the frame.
You stop mistaking it for reality.
This looks like:
- Asking who benefits instead of who’s right
- Watching emotional reactions as signals, not commands
- Holding beliefs lightly, even the ones that feel virtuous
The goal is not certainty.
The goal is mobility.
Conclusion: Seeing the Edges
Once you see frames of reference, you can’t unsee them.
Money becomes a story we agree to tell.
Power becomes a pattern, not a villain.
Propaganda becomes a climate, not a message.
You still live inside the system — but you’re no longer fully owned by it.
And in a world built on invisible assumptions, that may be the most meaningful freedom available.
Suggested Reading & References
- Thomas Kuhn — The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
- Michel Foucault — Power/Knowledge
- Pierre Bourdieu — Symbolic Power
- George Lakoff — Don’t Think of an Elephant
- Edward Bernays — Propaganda
- Yuval Noah Harari — Sapiens
- David Graeber — Debt: The First 5,000 Years
- Daniel Kahneman — Thinking, Fast and Slow
- Marshall McLuhan — The Medium Is the Message
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Well done sir!
thanks