OSWALD SPENGLER called money "a form of thought." Tolstoy condemned it as "a new form of slavery." While Thoreau figured that "the more money, the less virtue," Schopenhauer argued that "money alone is absolutely good" and Samuel Johnson declared: "There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money." The New Testament holds that love of money is the root of all evil, but Mark Twain reversed that adage into "lack of money is the root of all evil." Socrates said: "Virtue does not come from money, but from virtue comes money." Gertrude Stein remarked: "As a cousin of mine once said about money, money is always there but the pockets change."
These and a thousand other truisms or semi-truisms are readily recalled in times of financial trouble to bolster this or that point. But money is also something very simple beyond all those definitions. It is one reliable means of keeping score on the accomplishments of a person, a company or a country. Money gives its possessor a range of choices, and the way that a nation chooses to handle its money sharply illuminates its character. When the world tumbles into a financial crisis, the problem reflects the deeds and misdeeds of the principal governments, and at least in part the aspirations of their people. In the sense that money mirrors reality, money is truth.
In Gold We Trust
Not only does the current international monetary crisis reinforce cliches about national character; it also reveals that Germany is even stronger and France is weaker than many observers had previously believed. The French government is paying the price for giving in last spring to striking workers' demands for big wage increases. Those demands had been caused largely by the De Gaulle government's past policies of creating prosperity by holding down wages and skimping on social needs. In addition, France has long suffered from the tendency of many of its people to distrust their own currency, to put profit above patriotism and to have as their motto "In gold we trust." The crisis of the franc is basically a crisis of national confidence. Too many Frenchmen have been buying bullion and foreign money and transferring their savings to foreign countries in hopes of eluding an increase in taxes and a decrease in the franc's value. It is too easy for self-righteous Americans to condemn this behavior. Anybody who has not seen his own fortunes dissipated by recurrent invasions, inflations and devaluations cannot fully understand the miser mentality of many Frenchmen and other Europeans.
Money tells much about a nation's character because it is so closely entwined with a nation's history, psychology and destiny. Ever since Stone Age men began bartering with furs, and the ancient Lydians introduced metal money, practically every dominant civilization has risen to power partly through its ability to create and maintain a stable, widely valued currency. If money has not always bought happiness, it has often cured ignorance and illness, supported the arts and established productive cultures.
Borrowing Trouble