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Money
By Mehru Jaffer
I am not kidding. I really mean it when I say that I
wish I were full of miracles. Then I could take all the money in the world, crumple it up and make it
vanish into thin air.
The Beatles, I know would approve. They did go hoarse,
did they not, insisting that money could not buy love? It is found to be quite impotent in buying happiness
as well. I dislike the desperate importance given to money as I hold it responsible for ending many a love
affair and starting numerous wars. Money can never succeed in buying friends but it does improve the list
of one's enemies. If that is any consolation. Feminists have long held the view that money
speak but it speaks with a male voice. It probably is the only true wife of man. In fact the importance given to
money is yet one more tradition that can be traced back to the patriarch. It is author Victoria Billings,
amongst others who points out that man is brought up to look at money as a sign of his virility, a symbol
of his power, a bigger phallic symbol than a mere Porsche. This is despite the fact that preoccupation
with money is the greatest test of all small natures. Money is indeed man made and he has impoverished his
future throughout time in his demonic pursuit of money. In his hunger for land, in his greed for gold
and silver, coal, iron and oil man has overlooked far greater riches.
Pray tell me what is the difference between the dollar held in one hand and a family photograph in the other?
The family photograph, I know, cannot be cashed at a super market. But this is only because everyone has
agreed to give more value to that other piece of paper called dollars. Money is just a convenience. Therefore
it is also up to us not to give money the importance
we accord it.
According to John Steward Mill there cannot be intrinsically a more insignificant thing, in the
economy of a society than money; except in the
character of a contrivance for sparing time and labor. Money is a machinery for doing quickly and
commodiously what would be done, though less quickly
and commodiously, without it: and like many other kinds of machinery, it only exerts a distinct and
independent influence of its own when it gets out of
order.
And I feel that in this day and age the influence of
money is completely out of order. The basic function of money is to separate buying from selling, allowing
trade to take place without the so-called double coincidence of barter. And as long as money is given
the respect that is its due, it is fine. After that it is suicide. For things that contribute most to a sense
of well-being cannot be bought like family, friendship and satisfaction. And whenever an attempt is made to
buy happiness with money it has invariably resulted in a lack of well being involving incidents like dowry
deaths and other betrayals.
Numerous studies done on the importance of money conclude that once the basic level of poverty is
crossed it does not make that much of a difference to
happiness. Robert E. Lane, professor emeritus Yale University, quotes studies in advanced economies that
show the sense of well being soaring with every
increase in income amongst the poorest fifth of the population. But beyond poverty or near poverty levels
of income, if money buys happiness, it buys very little and often it buys none at all. It is only
market ideology that insists otherwise.
David G.Myers in his latest book, The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty,
believes that there may be some connection between fiscal fitness and feeling fantastic. In poor
countries being relatively well off does make for greater well-being. "We need food, rest, shelter and
social contact," he writes. But the surprising fact of life is that in countries where nearly everyone can
afford life's necessities increasing affluence matters surprisingly little and that too temporarily.
The correlation between income and happiness is found to be surprisingly weak. It is pointed out that
developed countries today are dotted with big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured
rights and diminished civility. Excelling at making a living but often failing at making a life, celebrating
prosperity but yearning for purpose, cherishing freedoms but longing for connection, and in an age of
plenty suffering from spiritual hunger. Myers calls this state of soaring wealth and shrinking
spirit, the American paradox. Obviously when it comes to a sense of well being, it is not the economy,
stupid.
Still want to be rich, anyone?
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