Can money buy love? Market Values and Romance.

While reading the book “What Money Can’t buy: The moral limits of markets,” by Michael J. Sandel I felt a relation to my previous posts. He introduces many instances of how market economy “crowds out” other morals that don’t belong to the market economy. For example, lobbyists pay people, sometimes homeless people, to stand on their behalf in queues for important congress meetings. Or how some schools offer students money to read books, or give monetary incentives to get high scores.

While these are fascinating debates about the corruption of morals by market values, I want to discuss something else. Usually the typical answer to the question “what money can’t buy” is “love.” Most people believe that money can’t buy romantic love, friendships, and in general good human relationships. Well, of course, that is true, but it is not entirely correct if we observe the way market values diffuse into our daily lives.

This is how I see it: When we are young, we tend to fall in love quite quickly. But, as time passes by, and the more we interact with others, the more we date others and gain life experience through those interactions, we start gathering information about ourselves. We learn what we don’t like, what type of people we don’t have good chemistry with. This helps us shape our preferences and character. When we become well established as ourselves, we find things we like to do; we start prioritizing some things over others. Naturally, our taste changes as well.

I think, which might be only the way I see it, while we’re young we pay more attention to things we like in our romantic partners. But when we grow older, we pay as much attention to the absence of things we don’t like in our partner זה לא מסתדר מבחינת מה שאתה אומר . While a partner can have many things we love, if he/she also has many things we dislike, it will be impossible to build a future with him or her. When we are young, we don’t need to live together or think much about the future, but when it becomes relevant, we become way more picky about the “dislikes.”

How does it connect to market economy? It is simple. The more the market economy’s values become the norm, or the standard way to see the world, the more we can agree on the “proper” way people “should” live their lives. Thus, we value certain types of characteristics more than others. Those who live by the values of the market economy are considered to be better. It is enough to look at motivational speakers, self-help books, etc, to understand what society deems to be the “good values that everyone should have”.

These values are connected to the idea of what it means to be successful. While there isn’t a clear answer to the question “what is a successful individual,” we do have a vague, general answer. How can I claim that? I watch TV carefully. Look at American romantic comedies. The protagonists are usually single. They live in the big city and have a well paid position, something which is not usual to their age. They live in a big studio apartment and never have to worry about money. Work takes most of their time, so they don’t have time for romance, until one day…

To be successful is to be well established financially. Our subconscious tells us that if someone has a good job, and he gets promoted or has a high position at their job, he has to have the “right” set of characteristics that allowed him to be successful. He or she is hardworking, intelligent, good with people, has a good education (probably), he or she lives productively, and most likely take good care of their health (it matters in social places). In short, they are exemplary.

As opposed to that, people with inconsistent employment that pays little, are considered to be the a bad example to how to live your life “properly”. The impression is that they don’t want to work hard. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be in that situation. They don’t lead a healthy life and they don’t care about their future, so they are irresponsible and cannot be trusted when push comes to shove.

When we get to the time we look for a partner in life; money is a big issue. We look for an insurance, we want our future to be stable. Thus money plays a big role in picking a partner. So while money can’t buy love, it can “buy” people a chance to be evaluated and to be noticed. So in a roundabout way, money equals successes. Success is a “proof” that an individual has the right set of characteristics, thus more likely to be respected and eventually loved. The market economy serves as a basis for the “right” values, and show us how we should live our lives.  Money don’t by love directly, it serves as a basis to evaluate people positively, thus making them more likely to be loved.     

One thought on “Can money buy love? Market Values and Romance.

  1. Pingback: Why don’t I tip my doctor? and why should I thank anyone who helps me because it is his or her job to help me? | Humanities Do Matter

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