What's money after all

Tweet

Why are we all so obsessed about making money? With sayings like "money makes the world go round" and "Money is the root of all evil." My understanding is that Money is a mechanism for the storage of benefit. That is, I can exchange my manual labour for a bag of tomatoes, which I need to eat or for a chicken, but chicken need looking after, etc. So we exchange it for money which we can put under the mattress or in the bank. Then poeple want to use your money for developing their ideas and are prepared to "pay" you to use it in the form of interest or dividends. But I find other forms of "Benefit storage". A smile. A good word. People are prepared to pay for it. Most big companies in the hospitality industry have already understood that and are "investing" in training their staff to be extra nice to clients. Companies are investing in Social responsibilities and environmental projects for the same reason. Can anyone think of other, unconventional "Benefit storage" mechanisms. (Nothing dirty, just ideas please.)