<story><title>The real use of money is to buy freedom</title><url>http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/money-buys-freedom.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>flyinglizard</author><text>I think that&amp;#x27;s a simplistic view. Most rich people became rich because they provided a particular value to society. This value is exchanged for money, which allows the rich to draw back this value as they see fit.&lt;p&gt;Lets imagine that Steve Jobs, instead of getting paid for his iPhones, sold them in exchange for a person&amp;#x27;s time. The average hourly wage in USA is approximately $24, meaning an iPhone would retail for about 25 hours. You can choose not to buy an iPhone, in which case you are free, or you choose to draw this value offered by Steve Jobs, but then you&amp;#x27;d owe him 25 hours of work. The exchange is still completely voluntary, and therefore can&amp;#x27;t constitute domination.</text></item><item><author>nexttimer</author><text>&amp;gt; The real use of money is to buy freedom&lt;p&gt;The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else.&lt;p&gt;Inequality (wealth-based) means nothing else than domination. If you are richer, then you dominate the poorer people. And richer countries dominate poorer countries.&lt;p&gt;This is the most basic and fundamental injustice [0] we seem to accept in our Western culture. Because we are those who dominate.&lt;p&gt;[0] If you remember that we keep telling ourselves the nice little story how every life has the exact same value.</text></item><item><author>miles</author><text>Tim O&amp;#x27;Reilly on money:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It’s easy to get caught up in the heady buzz of making money. You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-fir.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;radar.oreilly.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;work-on-stuff-that-matters-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Artistry121</author><text>And those involved in creating the iPhone (in countries with strong property laws) all entered into a trade agreement where they provided their time or skills in exchange for a certain amount of money.&lt;p&gt;Bill Gates had to give 30 cents of every dollar he earned to the US government to avoid going to prison. That&amp;#x27;s domination - the threat of force if penance is not paid.  Wal-mart never made anyone work for them.  They simply have said we will pay $7.25 for someone&amp;#x27;s time with basic skills - if no one was willing to work at that wage they would up it.  The value of unskilled labor is low.</text></comment>
<story><title>The real use of money is to buy freedom</title><url>http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/money-buys-freedom.htm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>flyinglizard</author><text>I think that&amp;#x27;s a simplistic view. Most rich people became rich because they provided a particular value to society. This value is exchanged for money, which allows the rich to draw back this value as they see fit.&lt;p&gt;Lets imagine that Steve Jobs, instead of getting paid for his iPhones, sold them in exchange for a person&amp;#x27;s time. The average hourly wage in USA is approximately $24, meaning an iPhone would retail for about 25 hours. You can choose not to buy an iPhone, in which case you are free, or you choose to draw this value offered by Steve Jobs, but then you&amp;#x27;d owe him 25 hours of work. The exchange is still completely voluntary, and therefore can&amp;#x27;t constitute domination.</text></item><item><author>nexttimer</author><text>&amp;gt; The real use of money is to buy freedom&lt;p&gt;The real problem is: This additional freedom you can buy with money means less freedom for somebody else.&lt;p&gt;Inequality (wealth-based) means nothing else than domination. If you are richer, then you dominate the poorer people. And richer countries dominate poorer countries.&lt;p&gt;This is the most basic and fundamental injustice [0] we seem to accept in our Western culture. Because we are those who dominate.&lt;p&gt;[0] If you remember that we keep telling ourselves the nice little story how every life has the exact same value.</text></item><item><author>miles</author><text>Tim O&amp;#x27;Reilly on money:&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;It’s easy to get caught up in the heady buzz of making money. You should regard money as fuel for what you really want to do, not as a goal in and of itself. Money is like gas in the car — you need to pay attention or you’ll end up on the side of the road — but a well-lived life is not a tour of gas stations!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Source: &lt;a href=&quot;http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-fir.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;radar.oreilly.com&amp;#x2F;2009&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;work-on-stuff-that-matters-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>calibraxis</author><text>Not true; there&amp;#x27;s a reason why we have police, military and (in the US) the world&amp;#x27;s biggest imprisonment rate.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s reframe. Our economic system is capitalism. That means I can exclusively control (via state force) a region&amp;#x27;s natural resources (a &amp;quot;property&amp;quot; relation between me and everyone else in the universe). It also means that most people try to rent themselves out, giving themselves up to someone&amp;#x27;s command for half their waking lives, in what is called wage slavery.&lt;p&gt;The more bargaining power the wealthy elites have, the less they have to pay their subordinates, and can impose worse working conditions. Another phenomenon is you can have a city with as many empty houses as homeless people... when property relations are extended to the virtual, unauthorized sharing&amp;#x2F;using ideas and computer bits are criminalized.</text></comment>