The Economic Museum of Stockholm opened in June 2024. Sponsored by Swedish bank Swedbank, it tells the story of money. Before known as The Royal Collection of Coins, the museum took a name change and moved premises after a major scandal a decade ago. It is now in the same building as the Historical Museum of Stockholm.
I went to see the exhibition yesterday. I have opinions. But first, let me tell you what you can experience when you pay the entrance fee and follow the trail of money leading to the exhibition.
The money trail
The first room displays a wide range of physical objects that throughout time and across the planet have been used to represent value. Money, we call it. But money is abstract, it doesn’t have a physical form. Sea shells, pieces of metal, carved stones, pieces of paper, bits in a computer. These are placeholders in our physical world for value. They are valuable because we and people we interact with believe they are valuable.
Cool collection. But something is missing. Do you see it? The people, right? They are only hollow outlines. I read the first display: Money is what makes us go to work in the morning. A little interior alarm bell starts ringing. I have opinions. It’s a little more complicated than that. But let’s get back to the exhibition.
Next we enter a room with historical objects related to money in Sweden. Silver coins minted in Persia found buried in Sweden. Scales, broken coins, and jewellery showing the transition from silver valued by weight to silver valued as coinage.
Then follows displays with coins minted in Sweden. From the early silver coins minted in Sigtuna (from 990) and Visby (1140) to copper plate coins (1664). Very cool to see on display the world largest coin, a 20 kg copper plate coin issued in 1664. Sweden produced 2/3 of the world’s copper at the time and had a shortage of silver. The amount of copper in the coin is what a silver coin with the same denomination would buy you. You see why Sweden was quick to change to bank notes.
Next about the economic development of Sweden. The industrialisation. The timeline of political agreements that granted rights for workers and lead to prosperity for the wider population of Sweden. What is called the Swedish Model. Right to vacation. Right to maternity leave. Paternity leave. Super important but boring stuff even for a history nerd like me. Perhaps you could have highlighted the conflicts more? These results were not achieved out of nothing. Why did so many Swedes emigrate to North America up until World War One? People got killed fighting for a better future also in Sweden. But I get it, this is not the story you want to tell today.
The grand finale
At the end of the exhibition you watch a movie projected on a wall. About how global trade connects factory workers in China with consumers in Europe. About the hidden cost of carbon dioxide emissions and if our economy is sustainable. It states that it is: we can continue economic growth. The changes needed for a sustainable future can be done within our current financial framework. It’s all about how we factor in the costs. It’s all about money. So it claims.
This is where the exhibition looses me completely. What a load of rubbish. If there is one thing that our current financial system has been unable to help us solve, it is the climate crisis.
The exhibition continues upstairs with displays asking for personal investment choices. Would you buy an electric car even if the price of petrol goes down? Would you walk an extra mile to buy an apple for a cheaper price? Would you choose a more expensive train ticket over a bus ride if you know that the climate impact of the train ride is smaller?
What a load of b-s. The failure of the global leadership of humanity is now pushed down as personal guilt on every individual?
I have opinions
The exhibition is one big greenwashing of our current financial system. The only thing missing is a booth where you can create a savings account with Swedbank and start investing in a better future today. Modern day equivalent to a letter of indulgence. We know the world is heading in the wrong direction. Pay here to relieve yourself of personal guilt and feel better. Come back again next week. And if it didn’t work, you are to blame for not investing enough. It is certainly not our system or our leaders that is to blame.
Swedbank got pretty bad publicity a decade ago. Money laundering of Russian money through a Baltic subsidiary. This exhibition is greenwashing. An attempt for Swedbank to free themselves from guilt by spending money on a “good cause”. To educate the public. To improve their image. You can see why a collaboration with the former Royal Collection of Coins would be a good match.
Go see the other wonderful exhibitions at the Historical Museum of Stockholm. Go see the picture stones from Gotland, the silver treasures, and the viking exhibition. Go see the largest coin on the world. But stay away from the tasteless cheerleading of our current financial system.
Money is not everything
Money does not free yourself from moral responsibility. Life is not a game about having the most money when you die. Money is not a substitute for engaging in the lives of our fellow beings on this planet we all share.
If everything is about money, then why is it illegal to buy sex? Drugs? People getting rich on the slave trade or collaboration with the nazis in occupied countries, are they free from moral responsibility? Let them keep the money and let’s move on? The claim is so stupid and so easy to counter. No amount of money can cure you from terminal cancer. No amount of money can bring back an extinct species. Oh, at the time we didn’t think it was a big deal. Now we do. Right. Exactly. How we value things today is a poor measure of value on the greater scale of humanity. It’s the best we got within the world of finance. But the world is larger than that.
Let’s keep the greater perspective that includes future generations. Let’s treasure all the priceless moments in our every day life that can’t be bought for money but depends on how we meet our fellow human beings. Let’s do things for fun, for love, and for free. Just because we can. Not to make a profit.
Everything is only about money if we let it.
