Maggie's Farm

Even today, people think the key to right and wrong in human economic interactions is whether someone is succeeding in making money, as if money were a taint. Societies in which people make money consistently improve lives for their members, and societies that execrate money consistently impoverish them. That wouldn't be so bad if they also believed that being impoverished was spiritually beneficial--not a belief I hold, but one that can be defended consistently--but instead they complain about poverty and specifically about the bad rich people who are less impoverished than themselves. When are we going to learn that money is a morally neutral symbol for value received? It's a promise of future reciprocation. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with it; it takes its character from the value received. There's nothing about money that prevents our choosing to do things for free, if we're so motivated. Usually our complaint about money amounts to a demand that other people should serve us for free. And maybe in some situations that's exactly what they should do, but it's hardly for us to decide. We have our hands full deciding how to fulfill our own duties of generous, uncompensated service.