Topic: How imprisoned are we by money? (Read 9471 times)

in my opinion, money is only a tool and not an end goal of our life, money is a means to achieve the ultimate goal of our lives, if our ultimate goal is no life after death or the afterlife, then the money should be used to augment supplies us after we leave this world , for example, is the money we use for charity, help others who desperately need.
Hopefully money we have, we use as-much to help others, so it can be equipped later we end our lives ... 

I said this on page 1

that's equivalent to asking how imprisoned are we by the fact that we don't live in a universe where food and stuff we want magically appears before us without doing anything.

The difference is that in our western world we have so many jobs that do not actively produce something. Working at a production line you can't take the product home and sell it to pay your bills. A farmer in the third world takes his corn and trades it against some water or wtv. We need money in our western world to be able to rate things. Since nobody knows how much you worked this month except your employer you get paid the corresponding amount of money which you can use to buy stuff. It's the only way a company can work since they won't pay out their product to the employees.

Oh well I assumed the places you mentioned are located in 3rd world countries so it was just applicable in that context.  I understand what you mean now, I wasn't under the impression you meant such remote places.  My point is that they likely do have as use for money unless they are in extremely remote areas which not all are.  They would likely have some kind of use to barter with other in the general area. 

Who said anything about 3rd world countries? I'm talking about isolated civilizations.

Tribal people and nomads have no use for money, they don't buy anything. They live off the land and the barter with other tribes. My dollar or your dollar is literally meaningless to them. They don't need money to maneuver at all.

I think the only reason you can say money means next to nothing in the third world is because the have little opportunity to acquire it and because the educations level is much lower.  But they still need money(like everyone) to maneuver and to better themselves living on this planet in this day and age.  They many be able to due more with less but that can only do so much.

As far as imprisonment and freedom go, I think in many ways and to some extent it is a mental and physical hurdle we all face.

It depends on what society you live in.

If you live in the western or developed world, you need money to survive. It's a means to whatever end you're seeking each day. If you live in a society that doesn't use money (like in small villages or tribes in deserts or jungles of Africa or the plains of the Mongolia money is likely meaningless to you.

In the western world money is freedom and debt is imprisonment. One can live on surprisingly low income as long as they don't have any debt. The debt that we incur is crushing us, it forces us to stay in jobs we don't like or live in places that don't inspire us. And the ironic thing is that a lot of the debt we incur (material objects debt) is gained in an effort to seek the things we think we want. If we weren't so greedy to be in our ideal place/state without earning it we'd be able to avoid the debt that keeps us from getting there.

Good question, good discussion.

check out the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us: The Story of Lost Boys of Sudan"

sometimes you can be happier without money

watch a clip of it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYCA6g9bNg0

Here we see a dangerous conflation between manner of living and possession of an object. This is very telling of the times.

Feel like the US government is imprisoned by it but not necessarily people.

I guess in a way it can free people but also lead to certain evils

This is the best paraphrase of my post regarding this topic

We are not imprisoned by money but freed by it.

Wow this one is quite hard.

There are two ways to look at it:
1. If you live in a country without major economic problems and have enough money to get by, money doesn't have to be important to you. When you can live everyday without worrying about it.
2. But if you really have to worry about money, it's hard to say it's not important to you. You might not need a lot, but if you have to worry about the little things you need money will be important to you.

There's the question if a good earner that says money is important to him looks at it in the same way as someone who's not out for big money but has to fear for the small amount he needs to survive.

Personally i'm lucky to be in the first group. Money isn't everything for me aslong as i have enough to life my life comfortably. Even if that means i won't be able to buy things just for the fun of it.
That depends on where you live. You can get (financial) help in the western world to achieve a lot of things educationwise if you can prove you're really out to get to where you want to be.
Opening a business with borrowed money on the other hand may be a choice, but none i would want to take.
If you try to achieve things without money you usually have to be a lot more focused to make it work. You'll have to work harder to live your life the way you want to.
Compare two persons: Same effort put into getting where they want to be, but one of them has money. This is sometimes the little thing missing.
Power decides who gets what. Earlier in history that power came from war, in our "peaceful" world it's nowadays money who decides it. Might not be the best possible design.
Not for me. You can't be insured against everything, so even if your life is okay you will always strive to accumulate more money. Money you can put aside for bad times.
And then there's the point of having fun at your job. If you love what you do money is a nice side effect. That doesn't mean you don't rely on that money.

Yes, but if you were born with a Ferrari, and someone, somewhere across the globe was born without anyone to be able to feed him or shelter him, do you really think that's a fair way of life?

Correction, nobody's imprisoned by money, but the lack of it.


I have a problem here. I would like to drive a Ferrari but I can't afford one. I have no excuse.

Seriously, there are many things wrong in this world, but money in itself isn't wrong.

Take for example, those who work poverty wages in the third world.

They earn just enough to live, to buy cheap, unhealthy food, drink contaminated water, and sleep on hard concrete in extreme weather conditions.

To them, money is what's keeping them alive.

It's important enough to alter my expectations when I go to the market or shopping or anything else that is commonly used, sold and traded for.  Even then I tend to not make it my only care in life I try to put money into perspective the majority of the time when I consider my core values and goals for life.

No, not on this planet.  You don't need an excuse to be realistic when it comes to money and the way it affects how live and want to live.  Unless you have a way to build your own self sustaining eco system you will need to play the game in some form of fashion, which in my opinion means limitations that you may not want to accept.
 
Money isn't a scam in and of itself, it's the centralization of power and control of the mone y by a small few that is the real problem.  Money is a tool like any other, for expamle a gun can be used to hurt others if those controlling the tool have bad intentions.  Money is used to control people when it's not decentralized.

Whatever was considered to be more then enough is to much for me so middle class average income is good for me.  I just wish things weren't so skewed in favor for the ultra obscenely rich in our society.

The unfortunate truth that money is needed for essential needs for a living, such as your food, water, clothing, shelter, and health care, I would say that money actually ties you to life.

When you couple that with a wealth inequality construct, it's a recipe for disaster.

A form of money is typically what is necessary to purchase the creature comforts in life that allows one to keep up w/ the Jones so to speak. I'd wager to say that far less than 1% could be considered survivalists if they needed to and even less than that that would want any part in it. Whether it's barter, hunting/farming, working for or money, there's a constant need to exert effort to keep one's life going. More so if you have a family.