If I steal a cheap pen, it’s because I wanted a cheap pen. There’s no deeper meaning to it. I’m not going to fence it for a fifteenth of a baguette at the bakery.
If I steal ten cents though, I break a much deeper taboo because money is by definition fungible. Why do I need the money, what am I going to use it for, and why didn’t I empty the cash register while I was at it? These are all worryingly open questions.
Furthermore I reject the premise that stealing 10 cents is functionally equivalent to stealing a pen worth 10 cents; if anything, the premise that these are equivalent depends on a very debatable modern consumerist idea that commodities are perfectly interchangeable for money and/or the belief in a “rational actor” that has never existed outside of economics classes. Sure that may have been be valid if I was in charge of doing a bulk purchase of pens (and even then people aren’t as rational as economists would like but I digress). These economics concepts are all too theoretical to apply to individual actors in everyday life.
That pen is “worthless” to my employer (at least in my mind) and simultaneously worth a lot to me; I wouldn’t part with it for 10 cents or even 1 euro because that wouldn’t be worth the inconvenience of not having a pen, or simply because the idea of someone wanting to buy something I own and didn’t intend to sell is offensive to me.
I do agree with the basic premise that we treat money as special, but to me that’s a natural and rational consequence of its fungible and abstract nature. It’s much weirder to consider physical objects to be fungible IMO (even if it makes sense on an abstract level for commodities), and that’s why the sentence “you’ll own nothing and be happy” induces so much existential dread despite being based on theoretically sound economic principles. I don’t care if it’s actually cheaper or more resource efficient, I’m not buying a subscription to my woodworking tools or selling my house. I like the psychological safety of owning things.
That part about rationality is huge. Far too many people believe that something costs an amount because it is worth that amount, and far too many people believe that something “is worth what someone will pay for it” while neglecting concepts like advertising and propoganda. So many things in this world cost far more than they should and wages are getting, relatively speaking, lower each year while those aforementioned costs rise and where’s the rationality in that? And all while people use that same belief to justify to themselves why a billionaire has “earned” their hoard.
It’s our biggest flaw, economically speaking and in my opinion, that we judge someone based on the money they have and not how they may have gained or lost it. A parasite with millions “must be pretty smart” and a hard worker out of a job “must just be lazy”.
If I steal a cheap pen, it’s because I wanted a cheap pen. There’s no deeper meaning to it. I’m not going to fence it for a fifteenth of a baguette at the bakery.
If I steal ten cents though, I break a much deeper taboo because money is by definition fungible. Why do I need the money, what am I going to use it for, and why didn’t I empty the cash register while I was at it? These are all worryingly open questions.
Furthermore I reject the premise that stealing 10 cents is functionally equivalent to stealing a pen worth 10 cents; if anything, the premise that these are equivalent depends on a very debatable modern consumerist idea that commodities are perfectly interchangeable for money and/or the belief in a “rational actor” that has never existed outside of economics classes. Sure that may have been be valid if I was in charge of doing a bulk purchase of pens (and even then people aren’t as rational as economists would like but I digress). These economics concepts are all too theoretical to apply to individual actors in everyday life.
That pen is “worthless” to my employer (at least in my mind) and simultaneously worth a lot to me; I wouldn’t part with it for 10 cents or even 1 euro because that wouldn’t be worth the inconvenience of not having a pen, or simply because the idea of someone wanting to buy something I own and didn’t intend to sell is offensive to me.
I do agree with the basic premise that we treat money as special, but to me that’s a natural and rational consequence of its fungible and abstract nature. It’s much weirder to consider physical objects to be fungible IMO (even if it makes sense on an abstract level for commodities), and that’s why the sentence “you’ll own nothing and be happy” induces so much existential dread despite being based on theoretically sound economic principles. I don’t care if it’s actually cheaper or more resource efficient, I’m not buying a subscription to my woodworking tools or selling my house. I like the psychological safety of owning things.
That part about rationality is huge. Far too many people believe that something costs an amount because it is worth that amount, and far too many people believe that something “is worth what someone will pay for it” while neglecting concepts like advertising and propoganda. So many things in this world cost far more than they should and wages are getting, relatively speaking, lower each year while those aforementioned costs rise and where’s the rationality in that? And all while people use that same belief to justify to themselves why a billionaire has “earned” their hoard.
It’s our biggest flaw, economically speaking and in my opinion, that we judge someone based on the money they have and not how they may have gained or lost it. A parasite with millions “must be pretty smart” and a hard worker out of a job “must just be lazy”.
I’ve never heard people say that someone with money must be pretty smart.
Is that something American?