Money and Wealth

I do not care about money. I know Butterfinger tends not to believe me a majority of the times I have professed this statement, but it is true, I think little green pieces of paper that are not backed by gold are pretty darn useless – especially given the way the dollar has been headed lately. That is not to say that I lack respect for its relevance in society as an intermediary between services provided and useful resources. Let’s face it, there is too much specialization in our economy for people to be able to directly trade goods and services with one another, so we need money to translate from one to the other.

I do care about wealth. Wealth being food, land, buildings and other resources that serve a particular function in sustaining us. Wealth is real, an absolute, whereas money is not. Having money does not necessarily mean you will be able to go through the various permutations necessary to end up with wealth. There are dozens of stories every day on Access Hollywood and the like, detailing the ways in which celebrities managed to squander all of their earnings and are declaring bankruptcy. These are basically cases where people got so caught up with the social conventions of money that they neglected to focus on the things that would actually lead them to sustain a good life.

If we actually lived in a society where the majority of the people were truly concerned with living a good life, where relationships are defined by love, understanding and community, I think we would see a dramatic shift in the amount of frivolous lawsuits and other types of mediation through which money is the bargaining chip. Of course this is only part of the problem, we would also need to drastically cut down on our consumption, instead focusing on a reliance on local products for our basic needs, amongst other policies.

Money is nothing more than a system for allocating wealth. The more Ben Bernanke and his cronies at the Fed keep cranking out the fresh bills, the more people will begin to realize that real wealth is much more closely related to their personal worth than it is to the digits on their bank statement.

Am I wealthy? Absolutely. I have a wonderful family, a caring partner, loving canine companions, amazing friends, a roof over my head, food in my belly and the ability to create wealth. All of the money in the world could not replace these things I have, items physical and spiritual that make me the wealthy person I am today.

To end I will quote my solo from an elementary school play, circa 1st grade.

You can’t buy friendship,

You can’t buy love,

That’s one thing,

I’m certain of….