Values of $$$

The other side of money remains poetic. The philosophy of money requires a harder look at what money can not be. Money can never be more than what it actually is. but defining it (assigned representative value and service payment system that is so universally useful and reasonably safe that every government, cartel, gang, friend and foe depend on its “assured value.” Specifically tempting, yet somewhat vague, an ethical view of money keeps me awed and afraid of even a few thousand dollars. Especially when everything, at least culturally and bureaucratically, has a financial value greater than human life.

You may not agree with that, or you may not believe that. You may believe there is no “philosophy” of money, just as there is of philosophy of science. Even economic literature, however, makes the powerful claim that, “Money is not real.”

Money is not real, in fact. Today it is not even tangible. It has no length, volume, or mass. Money expresses our mutual trust and confidence in many systems. It remains a vote of confidence for society’s core objectives and standards and enforcements, and the relative stability of those positions themselves. Georg Simmel (sociologist) regarded man as making stuff to separate himself from the stuff he made, and then trying to fill the divide, to bridge them,” and I must add, “or destroy something or everything.” Too many philosophers leave out the downside to their own arguments. Of course. Who would align himself with “Fraternity, equality, insufficency!” Practically no one, of course.

“What is real?” Not money. Money fits more in the realm of fiction, or imagination. It, and a lot of hard work, can produce something.