the desire for money brings us less money

[miriam_e]

I love counterintuitive things -- that have the opposite result expected. I especially enjoy things that at first give the expected result, but then reverse on further use, to give the opposite.

It looks like money turns out to work that way. Our culture, by focussing so heavily upon money, the economy, and wealth, is making us all poorer.

It works this way. Money is an extremely useful tool for trading. Before money was invented the awfully hit-or-miss barter trading system let two people trade, but only if they both had something the other wanted. Money freed up trade so that anybody could trade with anybody else. Of course it always had problems, but on the whole it was a great improvement. However we have collectively forgotten what money really is; that it is simply trading tokens. We have come to treat it as an end in itself. And so science, technology and teaching professions are all suffering now because they can't attract people into their ranks. People are instead becoming accountants and enter other fields where their lives are consumed with the purpose of simply moving money around. Moving money around doesn't actually create wealth. Science, technology, and teaching are the well-springs of wealth, and in our greed we are destroying the very things that make us richer.

Comments

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

I think Douglas Adams had this covered ...
This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

He was talking about happiness, and I agree that excessive pursuit of money does make society more unhappy. But I was talking about money itself. When, as a society, we chase money too much we paradoxically get less of it.

Douglas Adams. What a wonderful mind! I was just thinking of him tonight as I listened to an mp3 in which a couple of speakers were talking about how nicely the constants of the universe fit to make a goldilocks universe in which life can flourish. I love the way Douglas Adams dismissed the Anthropic Principle with the analogy of an intelligent puddle who is amazed at how miraculously the hole fits it. In fact there is an mp3 where he talks about that... searching...
here:
http://www.biota.org/podcast/biota_adams.mp3

Enjoy!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I've edited to clarify the title of my post now after realising that my whole post needed to be read carefully to see what I really meant. Thanks for bringing that to light.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

I see your intention, but both are tightly interconnected for most people. If people weren't unhappy with the amount they had, they wouldn't be so obsessed with getting more. It's really similar to when any of us are running late, misjudge or forget something as a result, and hence become later. If we hadn't put ourselves in a position to be worried about the time, we wouldn't have made it worse.

To muddy the waters, people don't even have to take up a different skill, such as accounting instead of teaching, to be involved in the movement of money, they just apply it in a different way. There is a lot of interesting technology, mathmatics, science and psychology in the way stock markets work.

[slave-driver.livejournal.com]

You know what's funny? I seem to notice the exact opposite of what you say about money to be true, at least for me. I've noticed that when I need money the most, I have the hardest time getting it. But when I've got enough money for a while, somehow it always seems like I find new opportunities to make even more. When I'm driving my cab, if I get some good runs early in the day the rest of the day goes so much easier. It seems that when I get the monkey off my back and have a little cushion to rest on I become more relaxed, I get more creative, I take more calculated risks than when I'm completely broke, which usually pays off in the long run.

I suppose you could argue that you did say that at first it seems to work one way, but in the end things work out the other way. That used to be true for me. I used to save money but after a while something would come up and knock me off track and I'd be right back to being broke again. That was until I came up with a new budgeting system for myself that I've had in place for about 3 years now. I now have about ten thousand dollars in the bank, more than I've ever had in my life. I don't seem to have the ups and downs I used to have. I don't have to rob Peter to Pay Paul anymore, my life is more relaxed and I enjoy things more. My hope is to have enough investments in place (thus converting money into real wealth) in the next few years that my money will make enough money for me so that I don't have to work anymore. Then I can get down to playing my saxophone full time, or maybe taking some writing courses and try to write a novel. I just don't have to worry about money anymore and it seems like things keep getting better and better. The difference for me came when I really started keeping track of where every dollar goes. So for me, the more I concentrate on my budgett and the more I know where and how I spend my money, the more my bank account seems to grow.

I'm not saying you're wrong or right about your post. If you're talking about the pursuit of money making us all, as a society, collectively poorer, you might be right about that, I'm going to give it some thought. All I'm saying is that for ME personally, the exact opposite of your post seems to be true.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yep, this is part of the problem. When we individually focus on money we usually do get more of it. This puts pressure on people to do exactly that. The trouble is that when everybody does that then our ability to produce wealth plummets because fewer people are working in the actual wealth creators: science, technology, and teaching.

Take your example where you want to accumulate enough money to free you from the day-to-day grind, allowing you to get on with your life and the things you love most, while your money makes money for you. This is what most people want. I'm no stranger to this desire myself.

The problem comes when you look at what happens in the bigger picture when we do that. For those with moderate wealth (enough to live just comfortably for the rest of their lives) it probably has little negative impact on society. Our societies seem wealthy enough to afford this. I've read a number of pieces that calculate that we could afford to pay everyone a basic living wage if we raised the level of automation a bit, but at the moment when someone takes themself out of the workforce someone else has to work harder with less money. I know this isn't immediately obvious. Think of it this way.

Money. There is a set pool of money. If one person gathers up more of it then there is less for others, so people get richer at the expense of others. This is why obscene wealth is truly an obscenity -- it deprives millions of others of enough money to survive properly.

Work This one isn't as tight a coupling and is more of a tendency. Also, it can be disconnected by automation, which would be good. As people become wealthy enough to take themselves out of the workforce they continue to consume things that must be made by others. If they consume at the same level as before then the impact may be minimal, but from what I've seen people tend to consume more when they have more funds and time to use those. You might alter your lifestyle very little, but on the other hand you may find that you have the time to travel to music concerts all over the country and even internationally, get a better sax, slick clothes, etc.

What is the answer? The only one I can see is to value science, technology, teaching, and arts more so that people are more attracted to those professions, so that you can play your saxophone and live comfortably, so that teachers do well and we have enough teachers that class sizes become small enough to educate kids better, so that scientists can spend their lives on improving our body of knowledge instead of worrying whether some boneheaded creationist politician is going to slash his budget, and so on.

But individually we have little hope of doing this, because the force that propels people toward scratching up more money actually prevents it. This is, unfortunately, a situation that I think only government can fix... unfortunate, because those in power don't have the capacity to see the problem let alone understand the solution.

[slave-driver.livejournal.com]

What is the answer? The only one I can see is to value science, technology, teaching, and arts more so that people are more attracted to those professions,

I do have an envelope that I put money into every day that goes to supporting local artists here in New Orleans. You may have heard of a disaster we had here recently? Well, as my wealth grows I constantly try to remind myself that I need to give back to other parts of the community. I've always valued the arts, so I put money aside specifically for the arts. I also have an envelope that I dedicate to charitable causes. My wealth is growing, because that is my goal. But I have always been put off by conspicuous consumption. There are certain things I will just never do, like own a Hummer, for example. I never want to flaunt my wealth in front of people who are less fortunate than myself and I always try to think of ways I can help them. Did you happen to read the post I made in my journal about the guy who was standing under the hiway over-pass with a sign that said he was homeless and anything would help? What I did was hire him to help me wash my cab and I paid him ten dollars. He was so grateful and did such a good job for me that I even treated him to lunch afterward.

I know I'm going to be successful, I have my mind set on that, but at the same time I try to keep in mind that I have a responsibility to the rest of society. Maybe that's the key. I think too many people become obsessed with wealth that they don't stop and think about other people. My philosophy is like the old cliche that goes, " a rising tide raises all ships." I think if we all thought this way it would be possible to accumualte wealth without taking more out of society than we put back in.

I really enjoy the conversations I have with you. If I ever get to Australia I hope we can get together for a beer or two, if you drink alcohol that is. If not maybe lunch.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

:D heheheh
Actually, I think your reply gives a much better answer than the dismal, pessimistic one I gave. Even better, I notice it is starting to work right now. The current affluent generations are becoming the biggest givers of charity and help that the world has ever seen. There is quite an anti-consumerist backlash building these days as many people have become aware of the social responsibility we all carry.

I agree with you, and I discard my earlier statement that this is something only governments can fix. In fact it occurs to me that artists, musicians, and writers are much better placed to change this because of their influence over what people see as "cool" and worthwhile.

Yeah. :) That would be great. If you make it over here (or I ever get over there) we could perhaps chat during a stroll in a park. (I don't drink alcohol or eat at restaurants as I've never enjoyed alcohol, and restaurants make me feel nervy and out of place.)

[slave-driver.livejournal.com]

I posted this: http://slave-driver.livejournal.com/129949.html?mode=reply to my journal, mainly because of this post. I hope you have the time to read it. I would be very interested in reading what you might have to say about it.

[qamar.livejournal.com]

I found your journal via patchworkkid. :)

I was just wondering what periods of history you're referring to where barter makes science, tech and teaching worth more? As far as I can tell (and I'm happy to acknowledge ignorance here), the issue is neither barter nor money. For thousands of years we've valued traders, war-mongerers etc... over abstract thoughts or teachers. Science is a luxury of a society which makes a lot of money/wealth through trade. Teaching is more complicated, but it doesn't seem to make a difference whether we're trading women, weapons or money to be critical of this emphasis.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Nice to meet you. :)

Actually I wasn't saying that barter was much good. I meant that money was a great improvement over barter. Hmmm... maybe I shouldn't have mentioned barter at all in the post. It is just that when I talk about money having problems many people automatically assume I am totally against money (I've even been accused of being a communist! heheheh... I'm not -- money has its problems like everything else). So I tend to mention how money was a great improvement over the previous system, in order to pre-empt such reactions.

What I wanted to point out with this post was that even if one values money above all else then that actually gets in the way of getting more money -- a nice paradox.

War mongers are another thing I must make a post about in the future. As far as I can see they are about as close to an absolute waste as you can get without actually being a total waste. They create stuff that either doesn't ever get used (a waste), or blows up (a waste) destroying property and lives in the process (a waste). The only positive note is that it can be used to defend you against other wasteful war mongers.

I, like you, value abstract thoughts, teachers, science, and similar things over war and, to some extent, trade. The problem is that promoting those things to a person who doesn't value them requires leverage... hence my point about the desire for money getting in the way of making money -- it speaks to those who already value money highly.