Author: Jairo Alarcón Rodas
Feeling like someone is watching. Think as one who walks, and when he must die, Remember that the day is dying and that the west is beautiful, and the night that remains beautiful. So yes and so be it.
Fernando Pessoa
Voltaire said: Those who believe that money is everything, do everything for money. Only those who know how to curb their desires are rich. But what is money, money is good to exchange and pay for goods and services. What is its origin? It is known to have been in ancient Mesopotamia where silver is believed to have been used for the first time.
It must be considered that with the appearance of agriculture and domestication of animals, agricultural production for commercial purposes came out and, with this, modernization for large-scale work. This is how people could not only eat what they hunted and gathered before, but also exchange goods and produce on a large scale to get profits, accumulate wealth, thus bartering was born and after that is money as a measure of exchange.
With the natural specialization of work, production is achieved and greatly increased, which brought with it the accumulation of wealth, a situation that led to the establishment of a trade system, a stable good of exchange, money. By this, not only goods but also capital was accumulated, with money, for Karl Marx, the social substance of work, as human beings embody work. It is one of the ways in which human labor is produced as exchange value.
Money is the accepted method in the economy for making transactions for the sale of goods and services, as well as for the payment or cancellation of debts; that is, it is a means of exchange and a means of payment. Money has a practical purpose, it will in itself be the common value of all things. He has, therefore, stripped the whole world of its special value, both the world of men and nature.said Marx.
But what is the value of money really Will people have relative or absolute value? For the capitalist system and its followers, money expressing the interdependent social (and therefore objective) character of exchange valuewhich cannot be changed in any economic transaction. In this system, money is everything, with everything that is considered goods bought and sold, including wills.
For some, money buys happiness, because, accustomed to the fact that everything has a price, within this system, they think that everything can be obtained with it , even happiness, however, what is happiness for those who consider this? Apparently it just involves the accumulation of goods, although, as Erich Fromm says, having turned people into things, while freeing them to be themselves. How much you depend on things and what you can buy with money.
However, there are people who, with a lot of money, are far from happy, for example, although they have the ability to be sure that they are satisfied to live comfortably, in terms of health, things change, many millionaires have died. some diseases, no money has been able to extend his life.
For capitalists or those who sympathize with this economic movement, reason is a human resource that must be used to achieve goals, within a timeline of means and ends, in which success is permanently present. Therefore, the liberal criterion coincides with the pragmatic one, in which the important thing is to be successful. As a result, the ethical side takes a back seat. At the level of concrete facts, this has been true since the beginning and establishment of this economic model, starting with the fall of the feudal regime and the victory of the bourgeoisie with the French Revolution.
For others, who understand that money is only a means to achieve certain goals, money is not everything and, on the contrary, they see more than the dangers that could exist within society. Because it is closely related to the satisfactions that release tension, caused by the needs of each person, it becomes an effective tool within power relations.
Especially with the excessive accumulation of wealth because, in this case, those who have capital get a certain amount of power that is proportionally related to the flow of their fortune, it is equal to more power and influence over others.
In this way, wealth becomes a source of discord in society, of pleasure and excess for some, and anxiety and sorrow for others. Money is not the problem, its poor distribution. In consumer societies, immediacy is essential and, as Richard Sennett says, Today’s risk culture is characterized by the fact that not moving is synonymous with failure, and stability seems almost like living death..
In his essay on The small pleasuresHermann Hesse warns of the degraded human condition and his desire to possess and live in intimacy, because of the rush around him, which does not allow him to notice to do the little pleasures that come with being there, showing: The world we live in is forced, urgent, flooded with time, sometimes suddenly separating us from the most beautiful and simple sources of happiness.. It’s these little details, if you notice them, that will make you happy.
In capitalism, the product replaces the person in importance and in the words of Eduardo Galeano, money is cheaper than people because, unlike people, money circulates more freely around the world. And so, more and more people are to serve things. These are the ones that become relevant. Losing the human dimension, which all societies must maintain, is one of the fundamental problems that come with the overvaluation of money and the offending of people, which, in capitalism, is the most relevant. .
In his book Being and Being, Erich Fromm mentions the dependence we have on having and, therefore, on money and, in turn, the effect this has on people’s behavior. Consequently, from that perspective, human beings are not free, they are prisoners of their need to be, because they are because they are beneficial to the system that is nourished by research and satisfaction of the series of artificial needs of consumer societies from money.
In this regard, Fromm points out: By leading us to greed, by leading us to generosity. The desire for profit, the fierce and continuous desire to accumulate forces people, making them increasingly indifferent to the pain and suffering of others, becoming buyers, selfish, even perverse. But, for some, happiness still lies in money.
Of course, there is a satisfaction that is achieved beyond the possession of money and what it can buy, which provides a deeper state of pleasure and happiness, sublime joys that are not achieved through ‘ getting goods, accumulating wealth, but through the inside. calm that comes from being at peace with oneself, until it reaches ataraxia, without disturbance.
Spiritual well-being should be achieved by knowing that you are doing things well, with yourself and with society and, of course, feeling satisfied with it. Be supportive, honest and respectful, things money can’t buy.
To be aware that there is a state of wholeness, which is not achieved through money, but by realizing that being is free from all visible or invisible chains that imprison us, which some have to do with being and moreover, it means happiness more than the terror, to which every man must aim.
