Money serves several functions: a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of a value, and a standard of deferred payment. There are two types of money: commodity money, which is an item used as money, but which also has a value from its use as something other than money; and fiat money, which has no intrinsic value but is declared by a government to be the legal tender of a country.
The famous English archaeologist and historian William Camden in the 17th century claims that money is the fifth element. He confirms with ancient Greek poet Alkaios who said about money many centuries before him: "Money, money is a man."
Irish playwright and founder of the London School of Economics George Bernard Shaw explained what makes money so attractive and so repulsive at the same time. He understood the value and importance of money and also recognized that it was easy to say that money wasn't important if you had lots of it. According to him "money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness". For him "lack of money is the root of all evil".
In modern society, money has an exceptional role: it is the measure of all social values, it is synonymous with social prestige and status, it is the key to political power, it opens many doors and washes away all dirt. Money is everything, and a successful "business" is the living ideal of every individual. Success only counts with wealth, but all people have not an equal chance to acquire it, and because of that revolt arises and also antisocial and criminal behavior can result.
Psychologist Donald Taft vividly explains the role of money in modern society: "Maybe a fair dollar is put in front of a dishonest dollar, but not a few dishonest dollars brought prestige... Economists can say whatever they want, but the profit gained by stock market speculation looks more like luck than hard work, similar to that, something - for - nothing to the philosophy of a pickpocket... The race for material gain puts fierce pressure on business morale too. The irresistible desire to show off with a faster car or a sexy girlfriend - often represents the beginning of a criminal's professional career, success with legal activities. The philosophy of capitalism, however, seeks to justify the difficult fate of those who could not achieve any special position in society by rationalization in the sense that they cannot blame."
