This valuation process that links natural resources to our economic activity has disintegrated even
further in the face of global capitalism. Harvey (1989) investigates how the global capitalist system
has transformed the human relationship with space and time—speeding things up and allowing
financial flows to move from one geographic location to another instantaneously. The global financial
system illustrates how this compression of space and time has effectively delinked money from
the material resources to which it was once linked. “[S]ince 1973 [when nations moved away from
the gold standard], money has been de-materialized in the sense that it no longer has a formal or
tangible link to precious metals, or for that matter to any other tangible commodity” (Harvey, 1989,
pp. 296-297).