Addicted to money

Imagine yourself transported back into the 50s for a while. Besides realising that there is no wifi anywhere (!) you may also notice how many people would be smoking around you. People would be smoking everywhere: in cars, bedrooms, offices, and even while holding babies. It was commonly accepted to smoke. Indeed, it was even believed that it was good for your health and happiness.

While the scientific proof for the connection between cancer and smoking was slowly taking root, we would collectively encourage each other to adopt an addictive habit that destroys our own health and that of others. It sounds bizarre, but yet it is true.

Now, go back into the present. What could be the current equivalent of the “smoking is good” paradigm? There may be a few actually, but one in particular stands out to me: our attitude to wealth and money.

I believe we have invented a special cigarette containing “the more one has the better” tobacco. All around us we smoke it and we grow to become addictive to it. Our own sense of security and worth is what we can consume or afford in relation to others. “When I have or make more money,” we tell ourselves, “I am more successful and happier”. It initially looks attractive and even feels good, although deep down we may know something isn’t quite right.

As a result, we tend to organise our lives and society primarily around accumulating wealth for ourselves by placing economic activity at the centre. In order to buy things we need to have a job where we “sell” our time and expertise to our boss, so that their company can produce goods or services that other people can “buy” from the money that they earned from “selling” their time and energy.

This brings an interesting yet subtle dynamic: we tend to behave more and more as self-interested economic units. Our aspirations and decisions become increasingly determined by our perceptions around how they increase our own financial situation.

For example, our choice of study or profession can largely be determined by the potential income we can generate from it. Ambition to compete with others and strive for the highest salary as possible is accepted, or even promoted, although it could hurt the people around us. We are inclined to buy those products that are cheapest, while they may in fact have been produced in a manner that causes damage to people or the environment. Similarly, it makes total sense to entrust our money to banks who can ensure the highest return on our investment, all the while knowing that such investments are not always ethical.

Such behaviour is also evident in the way we run business or how we start organising public institutions like hospitals and universities. We generally accept that a company will manipulate ‘truth’ or find creative ways around the law in order to sell more or cut costs. Companies become self-interested entities advancing their economic well-being and being overly obsessed by “the bottomline”.

“The more one has the better” cigarette is slowly but surely breaking down our personal and collective well-being and prosperity. It makes us more and more indifferent to the suffering of others. It is this cigarette of our time that promotes a cancer in our communities, organisations, and in the world at large.

Of course, reality is more complex and simple and immediate solutions will not be available. Just as millions of people don’t quit smoking overnight, so will some of our beliefs and assumptions around wealth continue to persist for an extended period of time. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves the question: what does it take to stop smoking “the more one has the better” cigarette?