What is My Worth?

It is sad to think that each one of us has a monetary value. I know that many of us would like to, and do believe otherwise. I don't think this state of things was on purpose, and I do know it has been this way for a very long time. Since the first moment humanity started placing value on objects this has been the case. What would a shiny rock get you, how much can two cows and one chicken get you? Today we do not deal in cows and chickens. We do still deal in shiny rocks, but not in our daily economic lives. The average person does not spend diamonds or gold coins, what we spend now is the all mighty dollar. We tell our selves that their is more to life than money, and yet we spend our whole lives trying to get our hands on it. We cannot move around without it, we cannot eat without it, we cannot cloth ourselves, heat ourselves, have a roof over our heads, etc. We are free in this country, it is a concept we are most proud of in the United States and yet there is a catch to our freedom. The amount of freedom one enjoys depends upon the amount of money one earns. Thus the classes still exist. I know that many of us would like to believe that we no longer live in a class system. We break our selves down into various categories. You have the homeless and the poor, next is the lower- middle, middle, and upper-middle class, and then there are the upper class. This class ranges from the single digit millionaires, the multi millionaires, and the billionaire classes. We break our work force up into blue collar and white collar, then we have our various minority groups. We break ourselves up into classes, little boxes that help us quantify where each of us stands in life.

Each of these classes exists based upon how much money an individual earns. That is to say that our tickets into one of these classes is dependent upon how much we do or do not earn. A poor person who is ill and in need of medical attention can go to the emergency room. The quality of care they receive is based upon how well they are insured. The same goes for any class, middle to rich, you have good insurance you get good care, bad insurance....who knows. That depends upon the nobility of the people around you. Of course the more money you have the better the care is. Hence the millionaire or billionaire gets first dibs on that organ than someone who may not be as financially well off. Money does not only dictate what kind of medical care we receive, it also determines how much time we spend in prison. The average person commits a crime, he is pretty much screwed. Cannot afford a top notch defense to help them utilize every legal resource available to them. Crime is bad, and people should not commit them, but at the same time not everyone accused of a crime is guilty. Sadly, if you are innocent and cannot afford a good legal defense you run the risk of spending years of your life rotting in prison for a crime you didn't commit. At the same time people that you are pretty sure committed the crime, all of the evidence pretty much screams it, but because they can afford the best legal defense out there....they get away with it. These are just the instances that money creates, I should say that society allows money to create. Money really does not have any real kind of power, only the power that we give it.

There are more indirect problems that arise from our financial system. Two major cases of this over the past fifty years is tobacco and global warming. Granted smoking is a choice, but for years the American public was told that smoking did not cause cancer. Our minds put at ease by a billion dollar campaign to burry the truth, so that the profits would keep rolling in. Physicians paid off to state, contrary to what they knew to be true, that tobacco did not cause cancer, any other health issues. Was it wrong, I am sure most smokers could feel the negative impacts of tobacco on their health and yet they kept on smoking. Their minds put at ease, because they heard from an expert that tobacco use was safe. It is an easy thing to do to go against your own instinct when you have an expert telling you otherwise. Why is this bad? Think about it, for years major corporations in this country have put profit above the lives of millions of Americans. Millions of people died, and all that mattered was the bottom line. The lengths that they went to to ensure the truth never came out, because it could cost them money. Money. Perhaps if someone took the time to add up all of the money made over the years of off tobacco, add up the number of people who died from tobacco related causes, divide the two and find out the monetary value of the lives of each one of those people who died. We should do that more I think. Calculate the monetary value of human lives. I think if we see the numbers enough we will wake up as a society and tweak the system a bit.

Today we are seeing the same thing with global warming. The evidence is pretty clear and just about every sane scientist on the planet is on board and yet, there is still a major effort under way to at least keep doubt alive in the minds of the American people, and people all across the world. The major difference in this case is that we are talking about the very survival of life on this planet. Money is taking precedence over life itself. Life, the life of our friends, wives, sons, daughters, everyone. Not just humans, animals and plants, the whole thing. Now I know that nothing is certain and no one can see the future, but we can see the signs. And still there is a major struggle and debate going on across the world as to weather or not global warming is happening. I would like to point out that this debate would not exist if it were not for the fact that there are people out there that are afraid of how much money they stand to lose if it were proven to the world beyond a doubt.

Think about the control that we allow money to have over us. The reason drugs are such a problem in this world has nothing to do with addiction. It is because we have made drugs illegal. Since they are illegal, they are more profitable. Since they are more profitable more and more people will sell them, because of the prospect of fast and easy money. The same thing goes for guns, the more we try to regulate gun sales, the more profitable it becomes to sell guns illegally. Many of the problems we face today stem from financial sources.

People kill one another for money constantly. Some people kill because they stand to inherit millions. Others kill to cover up a secret that could cost them money. Others kill simply because someone is standing in their way, keeping them from the money they wish to make. I could go on and on. Again I say that money is only the problem because we allow it to be. Most would not even think that money had anything to do with many of the miseries in undeveloped nations, but they would be wrong. The reason you see all of those children starving to death in certain third world nations, is because those countries really have nothing to offer the world. They do not have the resources that people want or anything else to offer. You have to have something of value to trade in the world of business, and if you don't, too bad. There are worse things than just being ignored for having nothing. There are also the exploited people who had nothing, but now are able to earn a few bucks a week working 12 hour days to make the products that are so affordable for many first world nations. What about the pain, suffering and bloodshed involved in bringing a diamond to the market? Not to mention the war lords those activities fund. The war lords we turn a blind eye to, because they have something we want and desire.

These are generalities, I know, but I mention these things so that you can do the research yourself. Dig deep enough and you will find out some very interesting things. And I also know that money can be responsible for some good things. The difference is that we are capable of doing those good deeds without money. "Every single problem that exists today is in some way linked to money, and yet everything that we physically achieve can be achieved without money"? We can build, produce, pretty much do everything we normally do with out money. The problems that exist in our society that stem from money would not exist without it. Now I know this is not 100% true, people will always find reasons to kill one another. I have a sneaking suspicion though that a huge chunk of crime would disappear if money were not in the picture. I know what some of you are thinking. He is a socialist, socialism's bad, and so forth. I don't know if socialism is really the answer, but I would like us to find a better way. There must be a better way. I would also like to add that the only reason socialism tends to fail, is because people screw it up. I would say that the same thing is going on now. We are doing a pretty good job of screwing up our current system. Every day we lose more and more freedoms, are taxed more and more, regulated, spied upon, and so on and so forth. How long before we are no longer living in a free and democratic society? The bottom line here is that it all depends upon us and the steps we are willing to take as a society to make things better. To focus on values rather than value.

It is not all grim. I love star trek and the concept that one day we will be free of money. Each of us working to better ourselves and the lives of those around us. Of course I only see that happening once we have solved the resource problem. That means getting of off this planet and exploring the solar system. The point is that one day we will evolve beyond the need for money as a motivator. It is rather sad to think that we are still stuck at that stage. When training a dog or any animal, usually the way you get them to do something is by giving them a treat. It is the same way, in a sense, with human. Really the only way you can get us to do anything is by paying us money. Money is the dog treat if you will to society. We need to evolve beyond this idea. I know this sounds like wishful thinking, but I see it as the inevitable outcome in our evolution. The big key as that we live long enough as a society to reach it. The way things are going now, I worry. I worry that we will keep ignoring the truth until it is too late. There are many that say it is already too late. I just hate to think that something as flimsy as money could lead to the end of our way of life.

Dennis James Huff