https://www.alainguillot.com/capitalism-the-highest-form-of-altruism/

The Misconceptions About Money

I live among a few friends who have a very negative view of money.

• Billionaires are the source of all our problems and inequalities.
• Money corrupts people.
• Money turns people into slaves.
• Money is the root of all evil.
• The world would be a better place without it.

In my opinion, money is none of these things. Money is neutral. It is a store of value, a tool, a medium of exchange—potential waiting to be unlocked.

In the vast majority of cases, money is used constructively—except when mismanaged by governments. In fact, money is the greatest tool for incentivizing altruism.

Think about it. Billions of people wake up every day and go to work: picking up garbage, making clothes, growing food, building furniture, caring for the sick, teaching children, entertaining audiences. Most of them are serving people they will never meet.

Now, if we removed money from the equation, we would call these people saints, devoted to the service of others. But because they get paid, we often dismiss their efforts as “just a job” or assume they are only in it for the money.

Yet money itself is just paper—or, in today’s world, digits in a bank’s software. It has no intrinsic value. It is a shared fiction that we collectively believe in because it motivates pro-social behavior.

Here’s the paradox: Tell people you are going to pay them money, and they will spend all day helping others. But on their day off, when they are not getting paid, how many people will volunteer at a local non-profit? How many will build homes for the homeless? How will many actively help others?

Most people spend their free time pursuing their own interests and pleasures. And that’s okay. But it proves a point: without financial incentives, widespread altruism does not happen at the scale needed to sustain civilization.

I have worked as a photographer for the past ten years. But now that I am financially independent, I no longer need to work as a photographer. I love the artistic value of photography, but let’s be honest—the money was a major motivator. Now that the incentive is gone, I have stopped.

The few people who dedicate their lives to helping others out of pure goodwill can never meet the demands of a functioning society. Without money, the entire global system—billions of interconnections—would collapse.

The reality is that the global economy is built on people helping people. Someone I will never meet grew my food, made my clothes, and built my apartment. That’s a beautiful thing—people contributing to the well-being of others without even realizing who benefits.

If you recognize money as the fiction that it is, then the world transforms into a vast network of people helping people. And the only alternative to money is force—either through direct violence or social coercion. That’s exactly what we see in communist societies, where incentives are replaced with fear and control.

The hard truth is that people are not naturally motivated to be altruistic on a large scale. Do you need proof? Just look at your own behavior. How do you spend your free time? Most likely, you are not out there serving others.

So there must be a motivating factor—either the carrot or the stick. And personally, I prefer the carrot, and I think other people prefer the carrot as well.

Money, for all its flaws, is a social good because it creates the shared fiction that incentivizes altruism. In a world where people naturally prioritize their own well-being, capitalism ensures that the best way to improve your own life is by improving the lives of others.