What is the true value of money?

Question

"Money makes the world go round", or so the saying goes. But what is the true value of money? Money consists of (in Australia) pieces of thin plastic with numbers printed on them and metal discs with numbers stamped on them, but what is the true value of a pocket full of this stuff?

Try this, take only what you are wearing right now and a fist full of money. Go to the middle of a desert, the ocean, the top of a mountain or any place hostile and far from other people. Now try to live there with only what you are wearing and your money, no tools, no communications, no help just money. How long would you survive? Or if this is too much trouble go to a zoo and jump in the lions cage, especially one that has cubs in it, and try to pay the lion with money not to attack or try to pay a bear not to maul you if you threaten it. How much luck would you have?

So my question is what (if anything) is the true value of money? Why is it that people will spend their lives in pursuit of it? Since money seems only to hold a virtual value to humans, is it that those obsessed with it are virtually insane?

What is the true value of money?

Please explain your answers and the reasoning behind them.

Thanks.

Please be aware for those that are answering by examing and explaining the function of money, I fully understand the function of money, I am asking about the value of money, is it more valuable than a human life? Is it more valuable than a rain forrest? What is the value of money not how does it work?

Answer 1

I agree 100% with you that people have lost balance over perceived value of money.

Value of money can only be fixed on hindsight based on what it does actually deliver and not when it is earned or accumulated or stored..... if it gets the expert doctor to save a life, it is as valuable as that life and if it can not provide food or water when trapped in a lonely desert, it is valueless.

Our society which creates value from nature through our human endeavor is the real one of value to us..... money is just an accepted way in the society to seek and deliver those created values amongst ourselves.

Our obsession with money as such is of course unwarranted.... our pursuit for money ought to be meaningful in the sense that we should earn it by delivering value to society and be absolutely clear as to what values we want from society.... that means three things are necessary to render money valuable.... we should earn it rightfully by delivering appropriate value to society.... secondly, we should have a clear idea of what values we want from society..... thirdly, we must maintain a healthy balance between the two so that neither we spend all our time earning leaving no scope to encash value back from society nor we bloat up our requirements beyond our means of delivering value.

Money has a momentary value.... the moment when it is spent for a valid purpose.... this momentary value can be extremely high or not at all depending on the circumstances and situation of the moment.

Answer 2

Money was originally invented to regulate trade. The true purpose of money is to act as a LUBRICANT OF TRANSACTION. Without it, a lot of economic and social transactions will be terribly complicated.

However, money only has a value when the society allows it to have a value. For example, our paper bills have totally no value in an indigenous tribe society somewhere in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. They may use other forms of transaction that can take the place of money(which in their society can be considered money). Another limit to the value of money is that it can only be used on things that the market has put a value on. If it is deemed valueless or cannot be appraised by the market, then money cannot buy it. For example, human life technically cannot appraised for all its total worth--you cannot attached to it some monetary value(though some people are foolish enough to think that it has a price). There are other places and situations where the "value" of money is just worthless.

The value of money is ultimately what the society can make use of it. Besides that, it is nothing but paper, metal and electronic data.

Answer 3

The Real Value Of Money

Answer 4

I guess that money has the value that you could have chosen to BUY the stuff that would help you survive in your desert, mountain etc. Money is a means to an end: at some point in history people found out that it was much easier to carry a fistful of coins and paper than it was to drag your belongings around in order to have something to trade with so maybe the true value of money is that you won't get a sore back?

Answer 5

The true value of money is that we can avoid trading with things and services, so it simplifies our life.

Money is only a mean of transport of goods and it only makes sense within a well organized society as somebody already noticed above.

On the dessert and during a war, for example, it doesn't work and people go back to making necessary things themselves or to simple trading like it used to be in old times.

If money makes people insane it's because when you have a lot of it you get a lot of possibilities. It's like with power. People would kill for that. Indeed, I would call those people insane.

Answer 6

Money is worth no more and no less than what someone else is willing to give you for the amount of money in question.

Essentially money is a device to greatly simplify the act of bartering. For example I work in politics, and am therefore unlikely to produce a good or a service of value to a butcher. In order to compensate the butcher for his services, I would need to acquire something to give him that he would consider a fair value for the meat he gives me. Without money this might be a difficult and tedious task. However money does exist and the butcher will gladly accept it from me as payment because he knows that someone else will accept it from him as payment.

Of course you are correct to point out that money has no intrinsic value. However so long as everyone agrees to accept it as a convenient stand in for physical goods and services it has practical value, and makes people's lives much easier.

Answer 7

well l
for an answer from me what you are going to get is a comment

Dude
You aint dumb

You asked that question very well indeed
that is all true

so all I would say
is that if you can continue to keep all that in mind
while money yet still exists
you yourself I am sure will be able to do a lot more good in this earth with a whole lot of money
than you will accomplish without it

just remember there are two worlds
there is that real natural world with desserts and Lions
and there is an artificial overlay of money and culture that most more consider to be the "Real" world
but there is no guarantee that the artificial overlay will last for your entire life
but that natural world will outlive you unless you make that body as immortal as the world you dwell in

Answer 8

Money is a poor reality people have agreed upon and empowered it to rule over the world.
No real value except to buy food, cloths and housing just the practical aspects of life. Money cannot buy life, love, honour, beauty, awareness, friends, peace, health, respect, consciousness or any of the things that actually matters.
Your examples are wisely presented and I only wish people would come to realize that spending a life time to accumulate wealth is in vain if that is all the pleasure we experience.
But money makes people think they can buy death off since money creates a false sense of immortality and power over death.

Answer 9

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What is the true value of money?
"Money makes the world go round", or so the saying goes. But what is the true value of money? Money consists of (in Australia) pieces of thin plastic with numbers printed on them and metal discs with numbers stamped on them, but what is the true value of a pocket full of this...

Answer 10

Yours is a hard act to follow. You ought to know you've hit upon nearly every example possible for the fact that money is valueless in the large scheme of things...

Dollars won't get me anywhere without drive, & my own lack of a lot doesn't stop me from doing things I love... so I have a pretty low regard for the "filthy lucre" anyway. I only keep enough around for necessities, which includes enough to give away to those needier, while I try to keep my skills up in case I need to make some more lucre.

I consider myself retired now, is what I'm saying.