When all you have is money

We are beginning to witness extremely wealthy people wield influence in world events like nothing seen since the days of the robber barons. Big money in the political world buys media. Media influences an electorate. Media does not have to be truthful. Truth is a lost value. Who knows how the wealth of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will impact the internal affairs of state? Big money is not always a predecessor of good deeds. 

Money is a necessary evil. The way we use money and the value we give it tells a lot about who we are. In reality, money is dust – paper that only has value assigned arbitrarily in notes that once corresponded with the value of gold. 

The gold standard was a monetary system that based the value of money against a fixed supply of gold. We all remember Fort Knox and visions of gold bars stacked to the ceiling. (Bob Menendez’s bedroom has the same look.)

The gold standard was unilaterally abandoned in 1971 and replaced by a fiat system stipulating paper money as legal tender. Fiat is a Latin word that means “it shall be.” We now spend and accumulate money that has been assigned a value worth only the good will of those who exchange it.

The rise of cryptocurrency – bitcoin and the like – point to the folly of the “it shall be” money system. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Like we play Monopoly using pink and blue paper money to buy Park Place or Boardwalk, it’s a game. When all you have is money, you have played the game well.

When all you have is money, much time and attention must be given to keeping and growing it. The almighty portfolio becomes a greater priority than family, friends or service. Paranoia grows if we think people might take advantage of us, so we guard our money and become distrustful of other people’s motives. Do they want my money more than they want me? Why are they cozying up to me? 

Being the richest person in the world is a burden. People are watching, judging. If all I am is my wealth, what about the other aspects of my life? Are money and the persuasive power it gives enough for a full, meaningful and productive life? 

When all we have is money, we develop a “let them eat cake” mentality. Crumbs will keep the “little people” satisfied. Give them enough so they won’t starve, but not enough to have a share in the prosperity of the good life. Money talks and says, “stay in your lane.” What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable. This may be how caste systems develop.

The comic book characters Richie Rich and McScrooge Duck come to mind. Stockpiling their money in storehouses, they fret, even as people around them have need. I remember Dolly Levi, of Hello Dolly fame. She says, “Money is like manure. It is no good unless you spread it around.” 

Recently a famous television personality rode by a $21 million dollar mansion and his wife said she wanted it. He bought it on the spot. I think about how vacuous that house will be. You could go weeks and not see another soul in the house. And the number of staff it takes to keep a property like that functioning is enormous. It’s hard enough as we age to keep up the small houses we move to. 

I also think about how much good $21million dollars could do to help children and provide shelter for those who have none. If all you have is money and if you have little motivation or drive or faith to spend it on anything but your own jollies, that’s a sad way to live the good life we are given. 

Wisdom teaches us that money is a double-edged gift. It corrupts or it changes us for good, depending on how it we handle it. We take personal values into our money usage situations. 

David Brooks wrote an insightful column in the New York Times called, The Moral Challenge of Trumpism. He states that MAGA politics is a fundamental challenge to conventional morality, “inverting the morality that undergirds both traditional conservatism and liberal institutionalism. In this inversion, norms and rules that counsel and enforce propriety, restraint, and deference to institutional authority become vices, while flouting them become virtues.”

An inversion of values impacts how we use money. No restraint, no social conscience, no stewardship of resources leads us into a dog-eat-dog world. I watch the scenes from Mar-a Lago, all the glitz and shiny, dancing and schmoozing. Trump and Elon in a relationship that has trouble written all over it. 

And Rome burns. 

Lib Campbell is a retired Methodist pastor, retreat leader, columnist and host of the blogsite www.avirtualchurch.com. She can be contacted at libcam05@gmail.com