“Money is the key to end all your woes, your ups your downs, your highs and your lows. When’s the last time that love bought your clothes? It’s like that and that’s the way it is!”
Run DMC
“I don’t know what they want from me, it’s like the more money we come across, the more problems we see.”
Notorious B.I.G.
Money makes so many decisions for us – where we live, what we eat, what schools we attend, what we drive or don’t drive, where we shop, what experiences we have like vacations, where we sit at ballgames, who owns the stores near us, whether we get interest on bank accounts or pay massive fees on check cashing or payday loans, whether we own or rent… the list goes on and on of money’s influence on our lives.
There seems to be a giant dilemma when it comes to money, finance, economics, and wealth. It’s like a big battle that’s constantly being fought around us, beside us, and inside of us.
In so many ways, finances drive our lives and determine many of our outcomes, all depending on our proximity to or distance from money. I don’t believe money’s dominance is there at the beginning, when we imagine what we want to be as kids or how we would like to live.
But it shows up soon, way too soon. We inherit its influence as we grow and recognize the world around us. We see what we have and what we don’t in relation to those around us at a young age as money’s effects seep into our lives. As we are enculturated into a capitalist society, we develop a dysfunctional relationship with the ideas, ideals, and practices of money.
Of course, there are practical reasons to have money that have less judgment and sit in reality. Money is needed for healthy exchange to meet basic needs like food and shelter. There seems to be a universal understanding that money in one form or another has a basic function to help us get through life. Money in and of itself is not bad; it provides a way to foster equal exchange among people and create an economy where everyone has access.
But there also seem to be many pressure points with money that disrupt the natural flow in an equitable economy.
When one begins to love money and piles way more than needed for themselves and when judgment of character and intellect gets associated with having more of it, our attitudes toward money have taken control. These pressure points lead to unhealthy systems and relationships surrounding money’s place, and money starts to take on qualities of its own. We start to think of money as having its own power as opposed to being a thing that is necessary for a balanced exchange.
This means that people with money become the voice for its use and acquisition. People with money begin to control its flow.
Attitudes toward money begin to expose our hidden assumptions and biases: “It’s for those who work hard.” “You get more based on your education.” “You can access it more based on how much you have.” “Once you prove you are good with it, you should be able to get more of it.“ “It was withheld from you, so you don’t know how to handle it and must be taught by those with it.”
These attitudes lead us to think of money as something to be acquired and stockpiled.
This view of money leads to so many of the injustices we live with today. There is little value for an equal exchange of money that could produce thriving neighborhoods, communities, and societies. There is a dominant ethic that those who can acquire money have the right to do so at the expense of anything else.
This is, as Dr. King would say, morally bankrupt. People make money at the expense of the planet. People make money creating a food system in which some cannot afford it and go hungry while others have excess and throw away what they don’t use. People make money creating a system of housing that demands that some are homeless. Examples of exploitation go on and on.
In our society, we have reached a point at which our love of money is immoral. We have made money into something that must be acquired by any means necessary. And we protect people who have money, often at the expense of those without it.
Money becomes the key to living, leading to all kinds of problems, big and small. We chase after it and make excuses for our love and protection of it.
We need a reset. We need an understanding that we must fall out of love with money and fall in love with our shared humanity, the love of neighbor, seeing the vulnerable thrive, and equity of opportunity. Otherwise, this system will continue to eat us alive. If we allow money’s cousin, greed, to seep into our bones, it will surely harm us and everyone around us.
Let’s call ourselves back to equal exchange, a fair economy, and a mindset of enough, so that humanity can thrive.