Money: A Trigger to Both Good and Evil

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Written by

Well, I guess I write.

3 years ago

Topics: Money, Good, Evil

Money itself is nothing but the value that people place on it has nothing to do with its physical value. We can say money can’t buy happiness but it can buy goods and services which can give us satisfaction and that’s what money is all about.

We use money as a medium of exchange for it allows us to trade goods and services. Money is also considered as the most important commodity in any person’s life, and overtime, it became a commodity that controls most aspects of human existence, both for good and evil.

We all know that no man is an island, therefore a person couldn’t provide everything for himself. We all need to acquire some goods and services from other people. Nowadays, we can achieve all those if we have money but before money even existed, let's have this brief history about a system of exchange called barter system which is also the first stage to monetary development.

Barter system allows us to swap goods for goods, services for services, goods for services, and services for goods. There’s a reciprocal exchange that is usually bilateral but can also be multilateral which made the system complicated. And that results to the abandonment of the system.

It is hard to look for someone who have what you want and at the same time also willing to have what you can offer. For instance, a fisherman needs rice but the person who have rice wants meat. So for the fisherman to have rice, he needs to look first for someone who has meat that wants fish and once he already have the meat, that’s when he can exchange it for rice.

It’s complicated right? And it can also be time consuming. Also, another reason why barter system is such an inconvenient, it’s because goods and services can have unequal values. An exchange of car for a mobile phone isn’t fair at all. We also can’t divide the goods so that it can be matched to the value of other goods that we can use to swap for it. If 3 shirts is equivalent to one book, and if the man has only one shirt, we can’t cut the books into chapters so that it’ll be equal to one shirt.

The barter system was completely abandoned so another medium of exchange was developed. From commodity money, people starts using precious metals such as gold, silver and copper but it results to another inconvenience because it can be very heavy to carry. A lot of development happened until the metals were turned to coins, banking also emerged, until paper bills were issued and now we have our fiat currency, as well as other currencies which we can be use to buy goods and services.

Enough with the brief history, let’s now move on to the significance of money and how money can trigger both good and evil.

As to what I mentioned above, money is nothing more than a medium of exchange but money can buy goods and services which people really want. Without money, our needs and wants cannot be satisfied. So money is indeed important and there’s nothing wrong for wanting and finding ways to have more money. Money can’t buy us happiness but the money can buy the things that can bring us happiness.

The existence of money can maximize our satisfaction. Money also determines the economic growth of a country. The increase in savings and investments means more economic growth for us.

We use money here to tip comments and articles and that's a good thing. People use money to help others. In times of need or in times of calamity, people usually do fund raisings to give it as a donation for the people who needs it. Private citizens and companies also donates money to charities and foundations. Money can be use for helping and it's good.

But we also cannot deny the fact that money have its negative side.

I was in a bible quiz bee back then when a question about what is the root of all evil was asked. I confidently answered money but I was surprised when I was told that my answer was wrong. We’re you surprised too that it was wrong?

Correct answer should be the “love” of money. Money itself isn’t the root of all evil; it’s our love for it. And we all know how love can turn as mad and make us do things. We, humans, have the tendency to want more and more.

We have unending desires to have more and to acquire more and when those desires become too excessive, it can cloud our moral judgment.

Manufacturers sometimes want to earn more so they are sacrificing the quality of their products. Businesses are cheating to their income report so that they could pay lower taxes. The amount of money we have is also being used as a judgment for a person’s social status giving those people on the higher class to have some kind of entitlement.

Having money can also result to us being materialistic. We just bought a new model of mobile phone but when a new model was released, we’ll want to have that one.

Sometimes, companies just give donations to charities and foundations so that they'll be levied with a lower tax. They give money and it's good, but their intention is evil.

Ate @Ruffa also have an article about money and she discussed in there how money can turn us into a monster. Give her article a visit by clicking this link --> Turning into a Monster - It's all about the Money! Money! Money!

Final thoughts...

Money is essential, it's a must. But it can really be a trigger for us to do both good and evil. There are people who tends to give more as they have more but there are also people who were eaten by their love for money so instead of giving more, their greediness to acquire more is the one winning in their system.

Loving money is okay for this is the medium we use to buy the things that we want which can give us satisfaction but let's not let money rules our system and cloud our moral judgment.

We will always have the desire to have more but let's be careful not to compromise our values and dignity as a person. Always use money in the right way. Earn it through hardwork and spend every bits of it wisely.