What is Money?

In the quest to escape wage slavery and create a better environment for our own flourishing, it's important to understand the nature of money. Grab a notebook and write at the top: "What is money?" Then, reflect on this question to become conscious of the essence of money. Here’s what I’ve distilled as the nature of money.

In the quest to escape wage slavery and create a better environment for our own flourishing, it's important to understand the nature of money. Grab a notebook and write at the top: "What is money?" Then, reflect on this question to become conscious of the essence of money. Here’s what I’ve distilled as the nature of money.

Money is a way to coordinate the flow of resources in society. The simplest way to get someone to do something for you is to have more money than they do and pay them for it. Money is luxury. Without money, luxury is unattainable. These two concepts are inseparable.

Money is freedom

The more money you have, the more freedom you have to use your time as you wish.

Money is a social construct

it’s an abstraction we use to determine the value of various things in society, and often this abstraction either underestimates or overestimates the true value. Think about it: we have money because we used to trade goods for other valuable goods. To avoid getting scammed, we created money as the sole source of truth. Money became the medium of exchange because it allowed us to acquire individual valuable items from others, and everyone agreed that exchanging coins was easier than bartering for everything.

Money is stress

The more money we have, the more stressed we become at the thought of losing it. If we have millions in the bank, the idea of losing it can provoke a genuine physiological response because we mistakenly equate money with our identity.

Money is not time

The modern world, where we sell our valuable time for a finite amount of money, makes it seem as though we can reduce our time to a dollar amount. However, this is a byproduct of the status quo. People who separate money and time are often the wealthiest.

Money is an abstract form of transactional value

instead of trading goods for goods, we created an abstract value that can be exchanged for something everyone desires because not everyone wants your potatoes.

Money has become synonymous with survival

All our basic needs—food, shelter, warmth—require money. Therefore, if you have money, you have survival. If not, you'll need to figure out how to build your own house.

Money is power

Those with the most money also have the most power. This is not just a correlational relationship, but a causal one. If you have money to spend, you can have people work for you. If you don’t, good luck. With money, you can have people build a massive house, cook for you, garden for you, work on your business, etc. Thus, money is power.

Becoming more conscious of what money actually is can help us relate to it in a way that doesn’t cause so much stress and meaninglessness in life. Ultimately, money is multi-faceted, and by exploring its many layers and uses, we can develop a better relationship with it.

Money can work for us, but we first need to figure out how to make it work for us. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. One of the principles Naval Ravikant discusses, which applies here, is that you can never achieve freedom by renting out your time. You must own a stake in a business or property. Without this, escaping the system of wage slavery that surrounds us will be difficult.