Money Wisdom #255

"Monetary freedom.... ....is a freedom which is empty of content, having only the negative connotations linked to the removal of constraint : 'In itself, freedom is an an empty form which becomes effective, alive and valuable only through the development of other life-contents' [Simmel, The Philosophy of Money p.401]. These life-contents will be stunted whenever money is treated as an end in itself. This is exactly what has happened in modern society. Money, as the ultimate economic instrument, has been turned into the ultimate economic goal. It has imploded in on itself as mammon."

Nigel Dodd The Sociology of Money (1994) p.49