What Should Money NOT Be Able To Buy?
What Should Money NOT Be Able To Buy?
In a world where you can pay for a homeless guy to camp you a spot at the front of the line before the release of a new iPhone, it's difficult to imagine what a MasterCard is not good for. You don't need to look very far to notice that money has a way of seeping into every inch of our society these days, sort of like fidget spinners. We are more spoiled for choice than ever before; I am currently standing in front of a vending machine trying to decide on which flavor I want today, even though there is no real way of really knowing if these products are as advertised or whether they're actually the used panties of 50 year old men who have a side gig in standing in line for you when a new iPhone is released.
The existence of markets in writing heartfelt eulogies, renting naked accountants, attending church on your behalf, hiring someone to apologize to the family members after they discover you'd bought your eulogy online etc. makes you wonder if there's anything money can't buy? Or are there things that money shouldn't be able to buy?
What Money Can't Buy?
If your first instinct is money can't buy happiness, then I encourage you to read a previous post of mine on this very topic. It's way past it's payout period by now so I can't be assed finding the link for you. Not unless you pay me $50 that is; so the link to the article about whether or not money can buy happiness is certainly not something that money can't buy.
Generally money has difficulty buying things whose value is eroded by the presence of payment itself. Trying to buy true love with money is like trying to wipe your ass with your own shit: you're introducing a variable that diminishes the very thing you seek, assuming you were seeking a clean ass in the latter case if not the former. Likewise, if I had a kid I probably wouldn't request him to pay me for the right to have his drawings stuck on the fridge with his earnings from working at the sweatshop. It can't buy things whose value depends on the absence of money itself.
And unicorns. Money can't buy unicorns
What Money Shouldn't Be Able to Buy?
Would it be acceptable to buy the right to speed on the road? How about pushing to the front of a kidney transplant list or have exclusive access to life saving medical operations? When technology allows, should the rich be able to select genes that can enhance the intelligence and physical attributes of their children, or even cheat death entirely by buying immortality? Should my ex be allowed to pay a lawyer to sue me just because the assassin I had hired failed his job?
Many of these examples make us uneasy, but why? What are the moral limits to what should be purchasable with money?
One of the things money CAN buy is a nice mattress
Harvard Professor Michael Sandel argues that this is because monetary incentives don't always align with promoting certain values. He cites an example where in an effort to promote more reading among school children, students were offered $2 for each book they completed reading. They found that the students did indeed read more books, but that they also read shorter books and when the money stopped, so did the reading. Not sure whether this would have worked when I was a student: I was already too busy learning to read braille by running my fingers along my pimply face.
Similarly a study in Switzerland found that residents were more reluctant to accept a local nuclear waste dump if financial incentives were offered. They were more willing to act out of a sense of civic duty, rather than have that magnanimity diminished via a bribe.
There are certain social goods and practices that money is ill suited to promoting as its very presence can compromise the meaning of these goods and practices. Imagine how it'd work out for me at the doctor's office if I offered him an extra $5 in cash to give me a prostate exam?
Harvard Professor Michael Sandel prefers 4 fingers in his prostate exams
Free market is a wonderful creation of humankind but it does have its inherent inefficiencies and isn't quite universally applicable. For now, I suppose I ought to be grateful that Apple isn't yet popular enough to require a homeless guy to camp you a spot in a line to hire another homeless guy to camp you a spot to get you the new iPhone.
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Love. Of course.
very true :)
one's soul
haha definitely true
Let's get the serious response out of the way.
I liked your use of the extreme examples of what money could possibly buy (speeding, transplants, better genetic code, etc.) But honestly that already exists to a lesser extent. Children of the rich have access to better food, better education, and better medical services. So even if they don't have a genetic advantage, their environment has so many advantages that it can trump the genetic advantages that a person without money happened to be born with.
ya it's true, I was meant to go from that to show that in many countries there are premium lanes where you can go faster if you pay, the wealthy are already able to genetically remove certain diseases and/or genes that increase susceptibility to cancer, but I ruined it with that stupid joke about assassinating my ex at the end and couldn't bring it back :p
@trafalgar I though the joke was great! hahahaha! Great minds think alike lol!
haha thanks a lot firepower :)
Ruined it? Or made it awesome?
No man you left some room for reader participation.
I loved that joke too. I love it when simply reading something can make me sit and laugh all by myself. Great job!
haha thank you everlove
Thing is, those people already have set a "standard". A base level for their happiness, comparing with their own community. This is how rich people are often quite miserable.
If you want to be truly happy then move to a place than everybody else has less than you do.
@hanshotfirst summed it up nicely. I had similar thoughts as I read through the article! :)
This is inevitable, right? Even if we know that rich people will get better access to healthcare, education, etc - we can at least try to mitigate / minimize it.
It seems too idealistic / utopian to hope for a society where wealth infers NO benefit regarding the important stuff of life.
Money can buy Steem = Steem rises = sell steem = earn more money = buy happiness and live happily ever after. Jk. Another good article @trafalgar , upvote.
thanks a lot freedomnation
what happens if Steem ROCKETS
Then we need a parachute for landing.
ill buy 2 BBQs :DD
You are really optimistic about life.
or irrealistic maybe
Money certainly changes the dynamics. Private prisons for example I think of as incredibly scary. Now people have an incentive to lock others up.
yes this is very true, incentives dont align well there at all
No such thing as private prisons when they are illegal to operate without government permission.
Thank you for making this ever more vivid.
The line of what is private is blur when government needs to grant its permission for everything but even more so because government can forcefully take away any previously granted right.
There is always an incentive to lock people up.
I appreciate how your posts somehow manage to be educational.
One of the biggest problem with money is that money seems to make money so the less you have, the harder it is to make.
I was thinking of a way to pay you to pay me even more, but the only way I could outsmart you into doing that would be if I had more money than you to begin with, which I don't.
Yes, the disparity between the rich and poor is exacerbated in this way
after a certain point, money just creates more money, so the rich effortlessly pull ahead over time making inequality worse
Great Stuff!! FULL STEEM AHEAD!!!!
thank you :)
seem to remember Steve Jobs ignoring doctors advice in relation to his cancer for a year or more in favour of non traditional remedies, but after that not working and at the pleading of his friends and family he returned to the doctor and was told he needed a transplant.
I don't quite remember the details but to get a transplant quickly I think he bought homes in multiple states to apply, and proved he had a private jet ready so he could get to the hospital within x hours.
As we know the transplant was too late and he died. Not sure the point of my half remembered story, it just came to mind
haha moral of the story is try not to die like steve jobs
Or just, try not to die
This! :)
Amazing post! ☆☆☆☆☆😎
thank you very much :)
You're welcome.
Wealth could not buy you happiness, friendship, health, love...
But it can help you to make these things to happen easier
probably, but not as much as most people think
Money cannot buy happiness true, but in today's world ,there's not much happiness without money for necessities. Everything in moderation works best in my view.