Money is the Most Important Thing

Question: “Money is the most important thing in this world.” Do you agree?  Step 1: Defining key terms • “Money”  Simply put, money/currency is both a measure of value and a medium of exchange of the commodities/things that is produced and bought in the market  Money (in terms of bank notes) parallels stored pieces of value in them – in which you can exchange for other goods with a similar value  Case in point: When you pay $10 for a notebook: that $10 represents the value of that notebook, measured in terms of $10 currency  If you obtain $10 from working at a restaurant for 1 hour, that means that the value of your work at the restaurant for an hour is equivalent to the value of that notebook in the market, selling for $10  Of course, this is a very simplified explanation and how the value of these products and commodities just cannot quantified so easily  Money can come in many forms: need not be the cash notes/coins that we are familiar with now: people used to transact with seashells, gold bars, and now digital transactions via computed digits on screen have replaced tangible bank notes  ‘Value’ of commodities: determined by many factors – how much consumers demand for it, the availability of its supply, the socio-cultural significance attached to it (for instance, how Gold is seen as a precious metals and thus is attached a high value) and also its utility function (how useful is it for us)  ‘Money’ or currency today however, is unwittingly mistaken and taken to be a living, breathing entity by many in their pursuit for more cash notes  Increasingly, discussions on money refer to it not in relation that what can be obtain from its exchange but rather what it represents in itself – it has become an independent product  “Money” does not remain just a measurement of value, it becomes pursued/chased after not for what it is able to bring out in exchange when we use it to buy goods, but rather for the sake of its possession • “Most important thing”

 There are two things that we need to pay attention to here: 1. The word ‘most’ is an absolute word and it also contains the comparative element – what is money compared to? Is the statement suggesting that other things such as love, care, empathy, kindness, passion, creativity, selflessness, religion, and more – are not as important as money? 2. “Important thing” – what makes money important? We assume that the question means money is the most important thing to US (as human beings who make use of them to acquire what we want and need).  But we need to clarify what is this importance based on – what aspects of importance are we looking at? 3. Dissecting this idea of ‘most important thing’ is therefore two fold. It is crucial to analyse the requirements of this term carefully because it holds the criteria to the question, and will guide you in terms of constructing the framework of your argument and facilitate your brainstorming process  Step 2: Some key questions to ponder over… These are important questions to ask in order to help you in the process of constructing your introduction and also your arguments for your essay Q1. Given that the word ‘most’ indicates that this is an absolute statement, do you agree with it? How should we get around to arguing the idea of ‘most important’?  Remember that it will be risky to accept any absolute statement because the heavy burden of proofing that this statement is true and valid is every possible scenario will befall on you  However, that said: are there any possible scenarios in which money serves an extremely crucial/vital function to individuals? When does money become (even if temporarily) the most important thing in this world?  One example of a stand you could take: “I do not agree that money is the most important thing in this world. However, money do serve significant functions such as giving us the ability to meet our basic needs or to grant us the power to help others out of poverty.”  Yes, in much of the societies today, we obtain food, water, electricity, housing, education and many other necessary resources by first possessing money before we can exchange it

for these commodities. Money is used in majority of the transactions today, at least in developed economies – and we rely on having enough cash in order to survive by getting what we need  However, to say that it is the ‘most important’ thing: is to claim that everything else is secondary to money, that money is powerful enough, alone, to obtain what we need and want, to accomplish our dreams and goals, to improve the problems confronting the world  In order to therefore come up with arguments that prove money is not the most important thing in this world, you need to think about what else is needed for us to achieve our needs/dreams/goals or to solve significant challenges?  ey insufficient?   In other words, in what ways is mon  What are some other things that are more important than money? Why are they more important than money? For instance, health and strong family ties – what do they bring about for individuals that money cannot alone guarantee? Q2. How should we quality the importance of money?  If we look at how money is important for individuals, we can discuss it in terms of the 5 main aspects of human overall welfare – physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social and intellectual  How does money impact these aspects? Is money essential in order to achieve an optimal state in relation to these aspects? For instance: is money essential to good physical health? Is money needed for a vibrant and active social life?  Can we still successfully balance these aspects and achieve a desirable state of welfare without money? Or at least without excessive amount money of it? We can also look at the importance of money on a macro  level and understand how can a strong financial status/economy improve the nation/country’s stability, prosperity and development?  Of course, we look into similar aspects that can serve as criteria on how to gauge whether a country is doing well: technological progress, healthcare provision, quality of life, employment, economic growth, cultural development, defence security

In other words, for this question, we can argue along the lines of: 1. While we do not agree that money is the most important thing in this world, 2. We cannot deny that as a measure of value and a mode of exchange for commodities, it does serve significant roles/functions for both individuals and society 3. We can therefore highlight the various roles that money play, whether is it for individuals or societies as a whole 4. In order to balance out this absolute statement, we should give out some examples (at least one argument) that suggest instances whereby:  Money is insufficient in its power to allow us to obtain what we need/want,  Or that we still can achieve these benefits with little money The following questions are to help you craft your introduction. In other words, let us think about the significance of this topic, as well as the present context in order to pick out what to include in our introduction. Q3. What are some characteristics of the present society such that this question would arise at all? 1. THE PRESENCE OF A CAPITALIST ECONOMIC SYSTEM  In Singapore, and in many other developed countries and modern economies, it runs on a capitalist system  In brief, a capitalist system is one whereby money is central to both the production and consumption of goods and services. We exchange labour for money and we subsequently use money to buy necessities in life that we need  Without working for money, we cannot subsist – we have no land to grow our vegetables/crops, we have no land to build our own shelters/houses on  If money is so crucial in obta