Thoughts on Money

If capitalism is a religion, Money is the God.

Well I think of capitalism/communism or any other kind of political system as a Religion. It is a system of beliefs in which people believe in. If you are a capitalist, you believe in money and the power that it gives you. If you are a communist, you believe in the government to do their duty as you do yours. Yuval Noah Harari explains it well in his book 'Sapiens: A brief history of humankind'. Just like Scientology doesn't have a god in person and is still classified as a religion, you can classify the political systems also as a religion. Just like Buddhism, where there are no gods but you are still free to believe in other gods, a capitalist can be christian, Hindu or Muslim. Religions in its entirety is a topic for another day or probably years to discuss, however, today's thought is about Money. The new god in town.

What is money? Money is not a physical thing, in the sense that it is not natural. Nature has no money. It is a figment of our imagination. It's something that we made up just like everything else. And most of the money in the world is virtual. The bank balance that we ponder everyday is virtual. It doesn't exist in the bank vault. For every dollar the bank has in its vault, it can lend 10 dollars to people. That mean 9 dollars that the bank lend to someone is non existent. If everyone who has account in the bank wanted to withdraw every penny that they have at the same time, the bank will go bankrupt. So the money as an idea is virtual, money as a material is mostly non existent but still people do all kind of crazy things for making money. People spend their entire life to make more money. People even weigh their love with money. Parents show off their wealth they accumulated for their children as the measure of their love. Children spend a lot of money on useless things to show off how much their parents love them. And still it is never enough.

One other thing people don't realize about the money is that it comes in different form and it has different values depending on where you live. It's called economics. There is dollar, euro, pound, riyal, yen, rupee, and lots of others. Each god has different values. one dollar god can be traded for 64 rupee gods. More gods means more favors. But these gods can be asked for favors only in specific places. The rupee god has no power in Europe. In Europe you need the blessings of the euro god. But still what a euro god can do for you depends on where you are within Europe. That's why you need 1050 euro gods to rent an apartment in Munich, Germany, but you need only 280 euro gods to rent an apartment in Athens, Greece. But an average Münchner earns the favor of 2600 euro gods whereas an average Athenian earns a mere 700 euros. This is where most people stops thinking. From the previous sentence it is clear that the average Münchner is more rich in god favors than an average Athenian. But if you think about it both of them spends around 40% of the god favors for an apartment to live in. Both of them has the same purchasing power in their city. If a Münchner comes to Athens with his gods, of course he is the richest in the town. He can afford the best housing. But as long as he stays where he earns the god favors, he is just the average man living in the luxury same as the average Athenian.

Now let's look at the hypocritical aspect regarding myself. I live in Germany and get a salary which is close to the average salary in the city I live in. It is never enough at the end of a month and I have to keep some dreams and consumerist wishes aside to make it through the month. One could say it all comes to managing your accounts and spending less on things that you actually never use. But when you support a family, there are needs and wishes that you have to fulfill. And at the end of the day, I will find myself chasing behind money just like everyone else. So I am in constant dilemma. 

The aim in life for most of the people is to get a stable job with stable salary and savings, in order to build a house later or to travel around the world or go in pursuit of their true dreams or collecting wealth so that their children could enjoy life to the fullest. It holds the ground as long as you think about the future. In their thoughts, more money equals stable future, more happiness, no worries.

Money was invented as a tool for trading goods. But it has grown, or moreover we grew it to the status of a god. Everything we do in the course of one typical day in our life is devoted fully to that god. It drives our consumerist life style. It gives us hope for the future. But are we so sure that we get to enjoy the fruits of our labor whenever we want in the future. Or is it better to enjoy the fruits right now while it lasts even if you have just one small cherry fruit?