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Asked by Maia to Francesca, Laura, Matthew, Andrew, Rebecca on 11 Nov 2014.
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Matthew Camilleri answered on 11 Nov 2014:
Money is not the problem, the problem is greed. If people did not have money they would easily find wealth in something else, like wheat and animals as was the case up to the middle ages (yes, they did use coins but bartering was still very important).
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Andrew McKinley answered on 11 Nov 2014:
Money is simply a way of unifying exchange. Historically people have always exchanged one thing for another “I’ll give you six cabbages for a hind of beef”. The difficulty is that tasks/materials are not always equally valued, and money is the way we give relative values to different ‘trade items’.
When there is a perceived imbalance in the trade, this is where unhappiness arises. Unfortunately, people always want to be on the better end of a trade, but it is not possible for both parties to be at the better end – it is either a fair trade, or it isn’t.
When money is hoarded by businesses, there is a perception of unfairness – that our ‘trade’ is uneven, and that is how people get unhappy. -
Laura Schofield answered on 11 Nov 2014:
I don’t think the world would be a better place without it…like Andrew said, we’d just find other things to trade!
I think we should be able to find a way to even out what jobs are worth though! I don’t agree with footballers getting over £15million a year while other people only get minimum wage! But having said that, I’m not sure how we could do that. -
Francesca Palombo answered on 11 Nov 2014:
There should be some alternative way to make it working. It would be interesting, I think!
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Rebecca Ingle answered on 12 Nov 2014:
It’d be different but like the other scientists have said, I suspect we’d just trade other things instead. Money is very convenient in how universally accepted it is so you can trade for anything you need, but it food, a plumber or a new laser!
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