I used to think of money as to just being a currency and nothing more. If people had a lot of money it means that they were successful, but if they didn’t have a lot of money that means that they were a failure. Money is the only thing that big and successful people care about nowadays. It is because that money is equal to power and the more money that someone has, the more power they could potentially have over others. This is why the government always favors the rich over the poor because they have a lot more money and can give the government more power. Money also decides the social class of society. Those who have a lot of money are considered to be rich and upper class. Those who contain the average amount of money are considered to be the middle class and the working class. Those who have below average amount of money are considered to be poor and the working poor. Money even has the power to change people’s thoughts and lead people to act immorally or lie to others for the opportunity to have a large amount of money. All of these ideas are true about money in today’s society, however money has more valuable purpose other than determining currency.

Money also represents symbols in different cultures and societies. In the United States, the founding fathers are printed on each dollar bill and coins to represent that they are the ones that originally lead the country. Other cultures also have a way as expressing money as a symbol. Japan uses Yen as its currency and their money also holds their past leaders printed within the sheet of paper. Money is valuable tradition because it can get whatever a person desires and it could also potentially save a life. By saving up money towards healthcare and insurance, money is a valuable essential that can help people in the future. How money can fulfill our desires is that people will often “trade” money and will products in return. Before there was money, people often just trade animal skin, food and other valuables to each other. Now with money, it makes easier to trade products. So essentially money does have more values than being just currency.

Works Cited

Gregoire. Carolyn. How Money Changes the Way We Think and Behave. The Huffington Post. 6 January, 2014.

Beattie. Andrew. The History of Money: From Barter to Banknotes. Investopedia.