Today’s world is highly dependent on money. It is very difficult to live alive without money as the socio-economic system developed by human beings has money at its center. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine the world without it. Though it is not natural and is developed by human beings themselves, it is very difficult to imagine it so and separate human life from it.
Money is important because it has value. This value has the capacity to buy different things of necessity. Human beings, themselves, have associated this worth to the money; otherwise, money is nothing more than a piece of paper or a piece of metal.
Every country has its own type of money, which is known as the currency of that country. For example, Afghanistan has Afghani (AFN) as its currency and is used throughout the country for trade and business transactions.
The concept of money was basically developed from the concept of barter system. In barter system, which was used in earlier human society, the things were exchanged with each other as every individual did not have the things of their requirement or choice; therefore, they had to exchange things in order to compensate for their needs. This system was not very much useful as it was quite difficult to find the thing of the choice from another person who would also be ready to need the thing a person had. This gave rise to the need of a standard thing that could have the capacity to buy things; hence, money was introduced in human society.
Though money brought some convenience to human society, it also brought some miseries. It was expected that it would make people more satisfied and contended, but that does not seem to have happened. People in search for money have basically become greedier and sadder. As observed by English writer, humorist and dramatist, Douglas Adams, “The Planet has – or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living 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 movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
The capacity of money to buy everything has basically made it a must to have; therefore, everyone strives to have it. Unfortunately, it is not with everyone – some have a lot of money, while others do not have at all; this has given rise to a sort of imbalance in the society. The ones, who have it, have authority, respect and power; while others, who do not have it, suffer because of lack of all the mentioned attributes. Depicting the same fact, American Rapper and Actor, Tupac Shakur had said, “There’s no way that Michael Jackson or whoever Jackson should have a million thousand droople billion dollars and then there’s people starving. There’s no way! There’s no way that these people should own planes and there people don’t have houses. Apartments. Shacks. Drawers. Pants! I know you’re rich. I know you got 40 billion dollars, but can you just keep it to one house? You only need ONE house. And if you only got two kids, can you just keep it to two rooms? I mean why have 52 rooms and you know there’s somebody with no room?! It just don’t make sense to me. It don’t.”
In fact the basic problem has been the value that has been attached with the money. The real value of money as perceived in today’s world is not equal to its value that it has in a business transaction – it is much more than that! The ones who own money just don’t have the buying power but they enjoy better social status and influence. They are considered to be better human beings even.
It is really important to understand that money itself does not have true value or importance. The important thing is how the money is spent. If the money is spent to buy something that can bring harm to others, its value is negative and is bound to bring disorder in society. On the other hand, if it is spent to buy something that is useful for the society, it would definitely bring happiness.
Though in today’s world of ours there are many people who have been able to earn money, there are only few who know the true value of money and there are fewer who know how to use their money. The ones who use their money extravagantly on the showy and luxurious things which really do not have any worth other than depicting social status and grandeur are not wealthy in true sense of the word. They are, in fact, the poorest people who do not have the wealth of wisdom and understanding of their lives, society and the people around them.
It is not bad to have money, but it is necessary to understand its true value. People, in real sense, do not own money; they guard it unless it is spent. People do not need money; they need what they actually buy with money. Nonetheless, these concepts seem to be very much idealistic and far away from the real world, which has become the slave of money – their own creation.
Human beings really need to ponder upon their ways of using money and dealing with it. They need to know that human beings are the most important, while money is to serve them. People and their feelings are to be protected, not the bundles of money. Society and social bonds have to be strengthened, not the stamina to earn a lot of money. Franklin D. Roosevelt had rightly said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
If human beings fail to realize these simple facts and they are engulfed in the greed of money, the socio-economic system is doomed to failure.