Money

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

download word file, 3 pages 0.0

Today, no matter what you do, you need money to do it. Right? Right! Shop. Travel. Make a phone call. You even need to spend money in order to make money. Money is real. People seem to be under the assumption that information wants to be free and that by enabling people to learn and follow their own interests will benefit society as a whole. Well, we no longer believe in society as a whole. We believe in the economy as a whole - a black hole! Why should you be able to think things, and even learn things, without paying somebody for that privilege? Let's get to brass tacks, the bottom line. Money. Money is reality. You see this printed dollar bill. It' s far more real than topsoil, oxygen, the ozone layer or sunlight. You may say that this is just a piece of paper with some symbols on it, but that's sacrilege! This is the almighty dollar.

Most of the dollars we worship are actually stored in cyberspace. Dollars are just digital ones and zeros in a network of computers, but that doesn't mean they're only virtual reality, and basically one big fantasy. No, dollars are utterly and entirely real, far more real than anything as vague as the public interest. If you're not a commodity, you don't exist! Of course there are many elements of our lives that exist outside the money economy. There's a lot going on in our lives that's not-for-profit and that can't be denominated in dollars. "The best things in life are free," the old saying goes. Nice old saying. Gets a little older-sounding every day. Sounds about as old and mossy as the wedding vow "for richer for poorer," which in a modern environment is pretty likely to be for-richer-or poorer...