macro economis
...rly forms of money are almost all precious metals. This is persuasive, but doesn't explain Indian beads, wampum, or those huge stones people used on some Island I can't think of the name of. Finally, people realized that money just has to be durable and desirable to work as a currency. Then it was thought that money was a function of people's trust in the currency issuer (usually a government--durable and desirable). But that hasn't turned out to be quite right as well because currency values fluctuate too weirdly for all that and it doesn't explain why money works the way it does. There's a lot of theories around about it. Frankly, I find them fascinating, but not really relevant. What I really want to know is when is money good (why do I want more of it), and when is money bad (because it is pretty obvious that people with a lot of it seem worse off somehow)? Good or bad? Can a mere thing be good or bad? Maybe not intrinsically, but the possession of some things seem to affect us one way or another, so I guess what I'm really asking is what about money affects us for good, and what affects us for bad? For the good, I want money because it stores wealth. I mean, if I have enough money, I will feed my family and be able to convince some strangers to part with stuff they have and I want. Having money is purportedly better than not having money. I can believe that. I mean, we need stuff and since money is how we obtain it, then money is necessary. And good. For the bad, I've come to believe that money harms us because it masks our dependencies. People often say that someone is 'independently wealthy'. With enough money, it is easy to believe that you don't need other people. I don't need to listen to my parents (boss, cop, neighbor, friend) because I...