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Money & Freedom

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China Doll | 12:04 Wed 24th Oct 2007 | Society & Culture
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Money buys freedom.

Does anyone disagree with this statement and why?

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I know it's a difficult question.... that's why I posted it as I don't have the bl00dy answer and I want one!

I shouldn't think it'll effect our relationship though cambus as I believe our love to be a deeper thing... plus I don't want to wrtie out to our new friends telling them it's off. And you've already booked the honeymoon.
Rich people in the grip of Religion aren't free.
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But surely that's still a personal choice? They can walk away from that or stick with it, whatever makes them happy. It's not anything to do with money and the idea that they're not free only stems from us non-believers. And that's just our pre-conception.

Also, as I understand it, you have to be pretty rich for that scientology lark although I think that's more of a cult thing.

Someone must be able to to think of something!!
Money buys choices not freedom.

If you're terminally ill it'll let you see out the last of your days in comfort but it won't cure you.

How much was Freddy Mercury worth do you think?

If you're so famous that the press will hound you to death it'll buy you the freedom to relax by a pool but not the freedom to walk down Kensington Highstreet on a Saturday lunchtime.

It won't reconcile you to an estranged spouse or get your son or daughter off of their cocaine habit.

We don't appreciate a lot of the things we have until they're not there and they're often the things that money doesn't buy.

Still Mae West said - "I've been rich and I've been poor, believe me rich is better"
A slave by choice is still a slave.
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Jake's answer is good but doesn't sway me.

Health care - You can buy health. No you can't cure a terminal illness but you have the freedom to choose euthanasia in another country if you so wish or the surroundings in which you die and just maybe the Consultant will get off their perch and talk to you like you're a human.

Relationships suffer all the time, rich or poor, it's nothing to do with money and you'll make up if you want to and that relative that needs to sort themselves out will do it if they want to. But I bet it's nicer at the priory or some retreat than an AA meeting in catford once a week.

However I do agree that money buys choice. But isn't that what freedom is? The ability to make any choice you want?

brionon - Can you elaborate a little please?
Brace yourself . . . or did someone mention �philosophical�?

The value of money is not determined by the numbers imprinted on it but by what one has done to earn it which in turn promotes careful thought about how one chooses to spend it. The value of freedom likewise rests on ones ability to appreciate the effort required to maintain it and the debt we owe to those whose wisdom and efforts have help to provide it. Acknowledging and assuming responsibility for ones own life and happiness is the currency that pays for the debt of ones freedom where ever it might be found. Without the freedom to benefit from ones thoughts and actions the quality of life and your potential to achieve happiness both suffer.

Money has no intrinsic value, it doesn't taste very good and is an inferior substitute for wipeing your bum. Money is only a tool for exchanging value between people who have produced something of value to exchange and who know how to use it for the purpose it is intended.

Freedom isn't free. You must have an appreciation for the cost of achieving it and the benefits it provides otherwise it will prove to be of little value to you when you find yourself sitting wet and naked in a prison cell.

Not the answer you were looking for? Either way, no charge! And no I'm not angry about nearly burning down the house making you toast.
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Well for a start you made my eyes go funny. And it's usually only Jake that does that.

Secondly, I needed your brain/googling skills the other day as I needed to know the average age people lived to around the time Jesus died and I couldn't find it.

Thirdly, you were gone ages making the toast!

Fourthly, I like what you wrote. Really I do. But it sounds like a prison sentence. If I don't appreciate what freedom is in a philosophical sense and the fact that our minds are free then I don't know what freedom is.

With the greatest will in the world Mibs and you know I love your musings to bits but in this instance; What a load of BOLLOX!

Our minds can be as free as they bl00dy like but at the end of the day if our bodies aren't too then what's worth? Precisly nothing.

From the moment we're born our lives are directed by the class we're born in to, the society we live in, the way our parents live, someone elses values, the things we can't do and the constraints of our own worlds. Somehow we navigate around this and we break some of the chains and some of the links. But ultimately not one of us is born free to do exactly what we want to unless you can afford it in the first place or you end up rich enough to buy it.

You're right. Freedom is earnt. But it's still in currency that the bank of England understands. And that thought is so depressing I think I'm going to curl up and cry somewhere.
CD, your expressions of idealistic living are not necessarily at the behest of money and/or freedom.

To run around naked and jump into lakes costs nothing (except perhaps some dignity and an itchy rash). You have the freedom to do this. If you wish to do this when you want and it is on a work day then it might cost money to your employer and a days leave to you. But you have the freedom to have a days leave. What you are effectively asking for is enough money to make you free from work. Of course, if you had enough money to make you free from work, would the desire to run around naked and jump into lakes still have the same appeal? Or would you rather be out spending the money�.travelling or doing degrees or making the world a better place?

degrees / travelling
Well you have the freedom to buy a place on a course, but would you feel fulfilled buying a degree? Again, if you could actually spend all your life travelling would this make you feel like a free spirit or a lonely wandering hermit?

Making a world of difference
Money makes the world go round. But the world went round long before money was invented and there were still global problems. Would money have saved the dinosaurs? Of course we could maybe help in some parts of the world with financial assistance and aid, but how much money would really be needed? Would you forego your freedom to do all the above, (travel, degrees, naturalism etc) so that you could spend your life and money like a pebble in the ocean of social problems?

Moon on a stick.
If this was possible, what would you do with it? Would this not adversely affect many parts of the world where the moon played an important part of every day living?

Freedom comes at a price, but money doesn�t mean freedom.
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My first retort to your answer Octavius was going to be a rather stroppy

'At least I'd have the choice'

But actually your answer upset (in a good way) me enough to read it again and go address some of the questions you posed.
So possibly, the crux of your question is about money providing you with the freedom of choice? Yes, the freedom of choice you need when you are buying or paying for something. But what about choices that do not require money? Freedom exists there still, no?

Do you think that Bill Gates, and the Beckham�s� have absolute and unlimited choice in every aspect of their life because they have oodles of cash? Or conversely do you think that someone with little or no means does not possess any freedom of choice?

There is a lot to consider. It is not simply a money=freedom tenet.
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What freedoms that do not require money? Are back on that 'your mind is free to wander thing'?

I do actually belive that. I do think that people like Gates and the Beckhams have unlimited freedom. And I think a starving child in Africa has very limited freedoms, well 'cept for freedom of the mind and I think I may have already touched on my opinion of that (sorry again mibs, I might have come off nowty there). Don't you think so?
To love (clogs) or hate (pickled onions).
To listen to someone or not.

eckseterrah eckseterrah
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Oh for God's sake, that's not freedoms! That's just preferences.... they're nothing to do with money!!

Besides, even if it was a freedom, you could buy a lot more of those things if you were Gates or one of the Beckhams!
But then to run naked in the woods and do a degree and go travelling are also preferences.
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You're twisting my words a bit I think.

They were examples of things you could choose to do randomly if you felt like it if you did not have to worry about life getting in the way. You could spend your whole life doing them if you wanted to and had the means to.

Eating pickled onions and wearing clogs is slightly different.
CD. Having read both sides of the debate. I think that my vote goes to the other side. A good effort but you were against some rather heavy weights.

Money doesn't, just a wider choice.
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That's fine ruby27 my love, I can live with the fact you're all wrong. ;0)

Seriously though. Octavius made me question the statement a bit and definitely on a more personal level. But I remain unswayed.

Freedom is choice. You have more choices if you're rich. Hence you have more freedoms.

It's just the way it is.

And I still find it deeply depressing.
What about laughing?

You have the freedom to laugh, it can be a preference or a choice and sometimes it cannot be helped. It costs nowt.

With the Beckham's money, they can buy things that make them happy and give them a certain amount of freedom but they can't buy love, happiness, sadness, laughter, life, or mental well-being (e.g. not Victoria). These are freedoms which most people want to have at some point.
I guess i've just watched Titanic too many times. Jack is free to roam because he has no financial ties (like a house, a job that pays quite good money that you're used to and frightened to leave) and if you look at it from a positive perspective instead of thinking about what you dont have it can be quite liberating.

China- i want to do exactly the same and a friend of mine does just that. She goes off for months/years on end and works in strange and remote places. I ask her how she can afford it and she just says that she doesnt. she just turns up and takes whatever work she can find. I see her as free in comparison to me who has enough money to get by and live in a nice enough flat and security but im stuck in a boring job through fear i guess.

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