by Rosemary Redfern

Created on: May 21, 2009

Money is a curious thing to love. It has almost been assigned a personality, a character, yet it is inanimate, it cannot love back. It's a tool designed for a specific use. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't have a graceful appearance; different coins might have some intrinsic interest but paper money and electronic transfers are hardly elegant. It varies from country to country because each society has decided how they want their money to look.

Yet it is the driving force of so many people. Having money is perceived as success, not having money is a disaster. The possession of money is seen as happiness, destroying more worth while objectives and deceiving people about what is really of value in life. The modern world cannot easily cope with a moneyless society.

In the past before a currency was invented and even now in some places, skills were traded. It didn't matter what your skill was if someone else couldn't do it, you traded on something they could do for you. Life was simple. Bargaining and exchanges still work in many parts of the world.

Unfortunately this is a clumsy way to gain goods and services; so we invented money. This seemed like the answer because everything could be assigned a value. The problem started when the value of objects fluctuated with demand and money started to be hoarded for the future. The more money you have the more you can buy. More money means youhave more power because of what money is perceived as being able to do.

Suddenly money changed its use. No longer was it a tool for acquiring what you needed in a simple way, it became a means in itself. Money became the driving force for acquisition. It became the object to have. With money, runs the belief, you can buy anything and anybody.

From this has come a distortion of the function of money. It has driven normal individuals to gross dishonesty, trickery and deceit. And this is still an inanimate object, a tool.

In most people's minds, money is not an inanimate object. It is a thing in it's own right. It is the only object worthy of desire. It is worth cheating for. Money and it's worship has become a god. If that sound blasphemous consider the current state of the world's various economies. The love of this tool has distorted markets, tricked individuals, left individuals without pensions, frightened numerous governments into cooperation with others they would normally avoid and generally made life very scarey and uncomfortable for thousands of people.

The love of money is sad because it stops people seeing objects and individuals of real value.

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