The impact of money

Money is a powerful tool. However, with great power comes great responsibility; and something with as much power as this can be used for making a tremendous impact – whether good or bad.

Let’s face it: everyone wants money. There is absolutely no one who wants to die poor. A lot of the actions we do on a daily basis are directed towards the primary aim of earning money – it has the potential to direct our career choices. And like everything else, one who wields such a force has the ability to swing it both ways – either you can be a philanthropist like Bill Gates and use it to make an impact to uplift millions who are not as fortunate as you and grant them the right to live free from disease, poverty and hunger, or you can be like some of our politicians who spend it all on personal luxury. Indulging in luxury is of course, not a crime – provided the wealth you have gained is via honest means. Indeed, the craze for money is so huge that a lot of people around the world resort to unscrupulous methods to accumulate more and more of it.

The concept of money was initially meant to be a common standard that was recognized by the state for making formal transactions. The barter system was proving to be increasingly ineffective as a means of exchange, as apples could not always be compared with oranges (as a matter of fact!). Thus, the system of currency was a welcome change that ordained assigning a value to every object and providing a medium through which exchanges could be made. As the years went by, though, money began to be used as an instrument by which those who had more of it exploited those who had lesser; it became the defining quantity of one’s power. Even now, the developed countries have a disproportionate say in world affairs and trade primarily by virtue of their huge financial reserves, and it is money that has the biggest impact on most of the important decisions and agreements taking place in this world. Money has also been the root cause of several conquests and conflicts – there would perhaps be no better example of this than India, a country which commanded about one-third of the overall share in world trade before the British rule. When the British finally left, it was reduced to a mere 3% - highlighting the main purpose of the conquest and the impact it had made.

Money is definitely not the defining factor of our existence on this planet. It is true that money cannot buy everything in this world; however, it can buy a lot of things, and those things can indeed impact the lives of us and many others and give us immense joy.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.