As social animals few ideas apart from money and religious believes can successfully bring large groups of individuals to cooperate. Another word jumps to mind- corruption. The idea of money tells us right now to do everything possible in order to maximize profit at the expense of everything else. Religion tells you that it is very bad to kill, unless you are killing non-believers. Democracy tells you that is all right to use arms because they “give weigh to our moral argument” over the other side. Nationalism tells you to put your country first- whatever this means in an inter-connected and interdependent world. To see how all this is connected imagine a militant saying no to a banknote which originates from the arch enemy but brings the means to destroy the aforementioned enemy. If it wasn’t sad it would be ironic.
The main function of money is this of an accounting system which successfully or mostly so redistributes access to resources. Money is not the problem. Neither is its’ quantity. The value of money comes not from the amounts. The value comes from how one uses these amounts.
Religion is a set of values or as Webster puts it “an organized system of beliefs, ceremonies, and rules used to worship”
Can we live without money or religion? Surprisingly the answer to both questions is no.
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