I think I am an exception to this. I think sometimes people who have lots of money attract the people who are only friends with them for their money, spouse included. I don't feel money makes the person and it's too easy to pass things off as if you are.

It might not be so much about the person but instead what money can do. It has the ability to liberate as well as prison.

In my opinion teachers should be the highest paid professions but sadly they are one of the lowest.

I suppose that it depends on the people. But does the question ask about what explains why they do what they do, or about what justifies them in doing what they do? The question, "why?" is ambiguous as between explanation and justification.

somebody said...can't remember who, but I think a famous philosopher....that 'money is human happiness in the abstract'. In a world such as ours, money is the measure of all things. There was a survey done some time ago in the UK where a large number of schoolchildren were asked what the most important thing was for their future. The answer was, overwhelmingly, 'having lots of money'. Looking at a world where there are more than a billion people whose major problem is lack of money, it is not hard to see why they think like this.

I don't believe money can buy happiness, but rank poverty, or even financial distress, can make life pretty miserable. On the other hand, if your a 'self-actualising person' who is motivated by (for example) doing something exceptionally well, helping other people, or some other life skill, money may not mean much to you at all.

Now a counter-view. There is a contemporary philosopher I am familiar with who believes that a great deal of modern life is driven by a sense of 'lack'. We have a gnawing sense of our own mortality, which is suppressed. But like psychological energy which is suppressed, it re-surfaces in other ways. Typically it resurfaces as a sense of lack, of not having enough, of not having a worthwhile life, which can easily become an obsession with money and fame. This is because it is thought that being 'rich and famous' will help you overcome your innnate sense of lack. Alas, it is rarely so. But it does explain a lot of what goes on the modern world, the obsession with celebrity and movie stars.

Money is a tool. Currency is an efficient adaptation of the barterting system. Human beings are paid for their production value, generally speaking, and trade value for value. The ability to produce is, excluding menial labor, derived from your ability to think. Money is a material that reserves the oppurtunity for long term transactions(this is where it diverts from the bartering system), and creates the ability for future production.This is why i admire earned money, and look down on those too incompetant to reach or appreciate this ideal. This is also why i find it foolish to remove our economy from the gold standard, and place our transactions on government faith.