There are few things that are so keenly desired yet cause so many woes as money. On the face of it, money is a neutral thing \u2013 a basic means of exchange and compensation. Yet it has come to be the centerpiece of so many lives, and as such it is the arbiter of whether or not we are satisfied and happy. But it\u2019s not the straightforward calculation of money that holds people\u2019s attention but instead what we can acquire with it \u2013 and what we can\u2019t without it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always had a problem with money. As a child, like many children, there were things I wanted but was told I couldn\u2019t have because of the cost and the familiar refrain that we didn\u2019t have enough money to buy it. That cool toy I \u2018d seen advertised, which looked like so much fun on TV, remained elusively out of my reach because of this fiscal shortfall \u2013 or, more often than not, the wisdom of my parents who knew that indulging my every whim was probably not in my best interest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When given an allowance or a gift of money on my birthday or a holiday, I acquired the means to obtain a number of objects within my limited price range. But then I was faced with making a decision \u2013 how should I invest my small pittance? Should I indulge my immediate hunger for a candy bar or save what I had received and finally acquire that cool toy? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to see how money has become such a preoccupation \u2013 money generates so much drama and presents us with so many life-changing decisions. And yet it really is simply human existence reduced to numeric values. It\u2019s all those things that give us happiness and act as obstacles in our lives translated into a column of figures. And it\u2019s so much more than that. It\u2019s the standard by which we judge ourselves and others, determining our \u201cnet worth\u201d, acting as a yardstick and driving a wedge between us as we warily guard our stash of cash.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did all of this happen? After all, there was a time when money didn\u2019t figure so prominently in the lives of people. And there are still parts of the world and communities that are less focused on economic gain and loss. Money is part of the numbers game that has developed along with the growth of civilization and the complex allocation and maintenance of resources. This grew over time so that you now have armies of accountants in large businesses parsing every dollar, obsessing over how those dollars are acquired and spent, optimizing business practices and enhancing balance sheets. These are the number crunchers, living and breathing\u00a0an endless stream of digits\u00a0to a maddening degree, leading so many to believe that it really is all about these simple\u00a0cyphers\u00a0and how they are manipulated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of time, people have had a strange fascination with numbers. I say \u201cstrange\u201d because numbers are simply abstractions, even though interpreting reality through them can have real world consequences. Numbers are a kind of distillation, reducing real world elements and processes into a series of figures. Formulas and calculations can represent things that we can see and feel in a relational way that more subjective descriptions might eave vague and are focused on feeling tones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numbers have been a part of the human experience from earliest times, being probably no more than a simple count, such as the shepherd keeping a tally of his sheep to make sure none have strayed. Things no doubt became more complicated as the numbers became larger. Keeping tabs on large harvests, populations and the intricacies of many other observations led to more complex mathematics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as all this happened, few noticed the extent of the collateral damage done as money became a central part of our lives. Certainly, we have been warned, particularly by spiritual leaders and prophets that the love of money is the root of all evil. We\u2019ve been warned, yet still, like over-confident snake handlers we heedlessly juggle our credit and debt, immersing ourselves in this fiscal swamp, sinking deeper but telling ourselves we have no other choice. We are captives of the belief that money is essential \u2013 and our belief is the actual basis of its necessity. And as we go deeper, it becomes increasingly difficult to climb out of this pit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people who are trapped in this game will scoff at such suggestions \u2013 just as a heroin junkie will dismiss the concerns of those warning of the danger of his addiction. Money is certainly not a drug. By itself it will not cause any direct physical harm. But an entanglement with money does have real, deleterious consequences, which certainly can have physical ramifications.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With money it\u2019s possible to accumulate and wield great power. With that power individuals and groups \u2013 corporations \u2013 can monopolize resources and deny access to those resources to those who have less financial clout. The laws of society protect those who hold wealth. The state acts as an enforcer of the status quo, using violence or the threat of violence to prevent those with less from accessing those resources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what is perhaps even more pernicious is the effect on everyday human relationships. It encourages a sense of ownership and exclusion \u2013 hence it separates people and sets them at odds with each other. It isn\u2019t money itself that does this but the use to which it is put, specifically the accumulation of power. For most working people there is a perpetual sense of scarcity. This feeling of not having enough or potentially losing what you do have creates anxiety and fear \u2013 particularly of others taking advantage of you and leaving you penniless, which is a threat to your happiness and your very life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we hear about the isolation and estrangement of people from each other, it seems clear to me that the culture of money and exclusive ownership plays an enormous role in this. The implicit \u201cI got mine, to hell with you\u201d message pervades society. There are, of course, a significant number of people who will give what they can \u2013 who will donate to charities and loan money to friends who are short on cash — but due to the imposed scarcity of resource control, they simply have very little to share. We go about our individual lives, looking after family members if we can, but seeing others at worst as potential competitors or, at best, well-wishers who are incapable of helping us if we are in need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is there a way out of this madness? Not without a significant change in the way we see ourselves and each other. The culture of exclusive, individual ownership which could be considered a result of the accumulation of money yet at the same time the force that drives it \u2013 the concentration of raw power and control that sustains this paradigm \u2013 traps us in an endless loop of need and acquisition, emphasizing a sense that we can go it alone \u2013 that in fact we must go it alone or risk losing what is considered a vital component of our existence to those who we fear would take advantage of us. The power of money to lock us into its dynamic and to feed the fear that keeps us in its thralldom is so great that many can\u2019t even imagine a world without it \u2013 that even the suggestion of such a world is to them the mark of laughable naivete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process of climbing out of this pit may be a slow one. It took us centuries, if not millennia, to become engulfed in this quagmire \u2013 it may take a very long time to get out of it. We may need to wean ourselves gradually until we can become convinced that, in fact, we really don\u2019t need money to live full, productive lives. We\u2019ll have to prove this to ourselves by incorporating more elements of sharing into our daily lives and society in general and to banish notions of artificial, manipulative scarcity which some have used to maintain control. Mutual support and aid must supplant the myth of self-sufficiency. Trust must dissolve fear. These changes need to take place before we can pull ourselves out of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, in the end the antidote to being enslaved by money is a very simple thing, but at the same time incredibly difficult. It depends on changing minds yet starts with opening hearts. Can we do this? Considering the state of our society I would say that we have no other choice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are few things that are so keenly desired yet cause so many woes as money. On the face of it, money is a neutral thing \u2013 a basic means of exchange and compensation. Yet it has come to be the centerpiece of so many lives, and as such it is the arbiter of whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/considerthealternative.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}