Money

In previous posts I briefly wrote about money as a tool and happiness as an end goal. I spoke briefly with Alex and Rachel of Community Sourced Capital today about our relationship with money, and how a zero-interest loan to a familiar business helps establish the idea that a monetary investment need not be about generating a monetary return, as long as there is a tangible benefit.

Unfortunately our economic system has become one which is focused on producing the most monetary wealth possible, regardless of the impacts. We use measurements like GDP, GNP, the Dow index, and the national debt to tell us how healthy our economy is, but the problem is that these measure none of the things that really matter to happiness or wellbeing. Just as disturbingly, by focusing on these numbers we start to conflate a means with an end.

If we look at money at a basic level, it is simply a tool for satisfying human needs. On Wall street, CNBC, and in much of pop culture, however, money is seen as an end in and of itself, or as a tool to make more money. The idea is that money will somehow solve all of our problems (personal and national) if we can just get enough of it, and that government's job is to help create as much monetary wealth as possible, and to keep it safe.

The right wing would have us believe that the government is overstepping its bounds insofar as it prevents the rapid accumulation and protection of wealth, and the left argues that we should tax the rich because economics is a zero-sum game. What if we could develop a new (old) attitude that both sides could buy into, in which money is put in its rightful place as not good or evil, but a tool among tools?

Check out this video for a wonderful take on money:

A new way forward?

I would argue that we should begin to measure our country's success in other ways:

-Number of people with meaningful employment
-Crime rates
-Environmental health (air, water, ecology)
-Mental and physical health of the population
-Education levels
-Lack of household debt
-Equality

What if these were our national priorities? I would argue that some of the money that has been tied up for so long in wars, wall street, and company coffers might begin to flow toward meaningful purposes. I even think that many (but not all) of the wealthy might choose to start using their wealth for social good and even allow themselves to be taxed at a higher rate, if it were to satisfy important national priorities.

Is this possible, and what would it take? Are people so tied up in their own self-interest that we cannot get there, or could a concerted effort of propaganda, social networking, and relationship building take us in a new national direction, in which the common good is placed above abstract measures of wealth, without sabotaging individual freedom?

I'd love to hear your take!