Money As Morality

Many people these days seem to treat money as morality. You often hear such talk in libertarian circles. But is money morality, or do the two have nothing to do with one another?

This is actually a very crude caricature of the libertarian position.

Also a very crude caricature of caricature ...

I don't think I quite understand the question. Do you mean something like "Some people think the only thing that matters is how much money you have, and that anything that produces money must be good"? I think it's clear that money and morality have something to do with each other (and the same would be true if instead of "money" you substituted anything else important: "sex", "religion", "work", "death").

Here's an apposite quotation from GeorgeBernardShaw, which I'm neither endorsing nor repudiating just now:

: Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.

The existence of the e-dinar and associated institutions would seem to be a response by some Muslims to the immorality they feel lies at the very heart of the current world financial system.

I disagree strongly. People are the most important things in the world, not counting the world itself (*). Money is only a means to an end. Some people forget that, but I don't think that many do. Most are trying to be happy.

And, of course, values-based environments are happier environments. You can't deny that ethics are better than fear, cynicism, hate and corruption. If you doubt that, a strong study in the effects, consequences and requirements of corporate ethics was finally conducted last year:

Managing Ethics and Legal Compliance by Treviño, Weaver, Gibson and Toffler (California Management Review Winter 1999 pp. 131-151) outlines the results of a study of over 10 000 randomly selected employees at all levels in six large American companies in a variety of industries.

They discovered increased satisfaction in a values-based environment vs. a mere legal compliance environment. Best quote (they in turn quoting Badaracco and Webb),

: "I'm cynical. To me, corporate codes of conduct exist to cover the potential problems companies may have. It provides deniability. It gives the employers an excuse. . . . The top officers can say, 'These employees messed up. They violated our way of doing business.'"

Furthermore, from cognitive evaluation theory, people feel cheapened and insulted when you offer material rewards for something they find intrinsically and socially valuable. You don't give bonuses to Red Cross volunteers.

(*) Of course the world is the most important thing in the world; if it didn't exist, neither would anything else. So, if we ignore that, and say people are the most important, it's in our own best interest to ensure the survival of the world. Whatever the world happens to be today. -- SunirShah

Why are people most important? As a person I'd expect you have a bias. The universe will go along nicely when people are extinct just as it had before the existence of people.

Because society is the most powerful force in the world whose direction you can affect. Unless you're amoral (in which case this page is meaningless to you), your best chance to make a difference is through the hands, hearts and minds of other people.

That depends on what kind of difference you'd like to make. -- DanHankins

A rather nice circular argument. The society you care about is made of people which makes people most important because people are what can influence society (other people) -- AnonymousIdiot?

What are your other options?

I'll answer obliquely: I don't program in order to have clients, I have clients in order to program. -- DanHankins

Why is it that options are needed? Higher level justifications of an absolute authoritative nature are not needed for you to act or believe. Accept that your position is one of millions and has no special standing in the universe. This takes immense courage, but has the advantage of being honest. -- AnonymousIdiot

I disagree strongly. In order to survive in the world, one must interact with your peers in some sort of community. That community has a common goal: mutual survival, with maybe higher level goals like mutual happiness. In order to achieve those goals, you must act collectively and not individually. The other option is hermitude or suicide. (Stoicism is psychological hermitude.)

For instance, if you believe that you should be free to do as you want, you must act to defend your freedom. In order for the whole set of individuals to continue to have freedom, they must come together to vanquish threats to their freedom stronger than any one of them alone.

In other words, often, one person alone cannot do much.

Your world is remarkably constrained. It's either the HiveMind, hermitude, or suicide. Try individual actors trying to survive. Everything else is illusion generated from these forces. I don't recall signing any mutual survival contract to participate in the communities I'm in. In fact, I'm quite certain most of the community is only interested in what I can do for them, my survival or the communities survival is never a concern, it's a byproduct of individual survival. -- Anonymous'Idiot

If you are looking for an explicit indication that you should care about society, you won't get one. That's an invalid argument anyway. Is there an explicit contract stating you should breathe? Yet you feel compelled to do so.

It's questionable whether your analysis of community is correct by definition. Most communities I am aware of are more collective than purely individualistic. There are certainly some communities that are very collective in their approach.

Also, your assertion that individual actions make up group behaviour is of course correct by definition. That doesn't exclude the nature of those actions from being community minded. Don't you have any real friends? Don't you ever do a favour without asking a favour in return? That's what I mean.

Consider a soccer team. Don't you ever pass the ball?

Individually speaking, it is more optimal to worry about TheCollective. -- SunirShah