Authored by George Ford Smith via Mises Institute,
In the 1964 film The Pawnbroker, Rod Steiger plays Sol Nazerman, a Holocaust survivor who operates a pawnshop in Harlem. In one memorable scene, his young assistant asks him what he believes in. "Money," he answers. Money has extraordinary powers. It can buy comfort, luxury, relief from pain, sometimes even life itself. Then he adds, his anger driving him:
Now you listen to me and listen very carefully. Next to the speed of light which Einstein says is the only absolute in the universe, second only to that I rank money.
Believe me, that's all you need to know.
"Is it everything?" "Money is the whole thing," Nazerman tells him.
Nazerman had suffered horrors that have left him emotionally damaged. Money became the center of his life, something he could cling to in a world overtaken by wanton malevolence.
Of course, Nazerman was wrong, there's more to life than money. We tell ourselves that while knowing everything has a price tag, even death. To what extent does the pursuit of money drive us?
What Is Money?
Economists define money as a generally-accepted medium of exchange. It is one of mankind's greatest discoveries.
Money solves the problem of the double coincidence of wants. A farmer sells his wheat for something widely accepted in exchange, then uses it to buy shoes. The shoemaker doesn't want wheat but accepts the money because he knows others will accept it from him.
People pursuing their individual inte
