Within the film Silicon Valley much of the growth of the microelectronics industry is documented to show its technological advances. After reading Patrice Flichy's text regarding the myth of utopias I’m able to see a creation of the imaginary of money. An important quotation that acknowledges this imaginary is the statement said in an interview, “Money doesn’t seem real, it’s just a way of keeping score”. For many entrepreneurs their financial growth was no longer seen as a physical object of currency, but rather a way to show their importance in comparison to others. This resonated with myself due to the way it’s true in society. Much of our profits we never physically have, rather this imaginary salary we’re given based on our labor brings us closer to our utopias. Money is ultimately given a new meaning within this myth of success society created. As Flichy mentions this utopia functions on a level which legitimizes how the social group works (to produce and achieve more money) and is actually something unattainable. This is evident through Silicon Vallley because of the competition of new technology triumphing over older ones. The link between the quotation in connection to visible ideologies make it obvious to see that much of our desires of what we want are not physical, rather they created imaginaries we form through utopian ideologies. The way that our utopia drives our society to sell our labor to gain a non-physical amount of money led myself to do more research. Within an article on PCWorld it spoke of many elites in our society and their accomplishments that lead them to wealth. But at the end it says,
"Of course, some of the valuations represent their net worth on paper, not in terms of money in the bank. Still, with the average American earning just a few million dollars over the course of their entire lives, they don’t have it so bad."
What I found from this was that yes, our society is driven by this utopia of being the best solely on the amount of zero's on our paycheque to keep score against one another. But these large numbers or ways of keeping score don't exactly impact society living a satisfying life.
Do you agree that our lives are surrounded by a utopia that encourages money to be an imaginary which keeps score?
I do agree that we live in a society where we compare ourselves to others based on financial success. However, I think that in regards to the idea of money not seeming real anymore or just a valuation, it is more applicable to businesses than on an individual level. While we are motivated on an individual basis to earn money, I think that money is more often represented as a materiality through commodities we buy to show our social status: cars, houses, electronics etc. We do in fact have physical things to represent our salary. Whether we buy goods for status or any another reason, we are aware of the ownership of money through that purchase and the decrease in our bank accounts. With the ability of paying for things with just a tap of a credit card or shopping online, individuals are losing their awareness, as money is less tangible due to a lack of physical exchange. From that point of view I understand the reasoning behind the statement that we usually never physically have our own profits, as money is constantly exchanged in the market; however I think individuals spend enough on materials that it is essential we do not forget the physical representation of money in society.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I know that having money is one of the only ways individuals are able to participate in the marketplace, I do agree that we have become obsessed with keeping score of how much we have, and more importantly, how much we are worth. I understand that individuals want to earn more money so that they can afford nicer things, however I think that we speak too much about someone’s net worth as if he/she is a human being of greater importance solely because they have more things. For example, there are various articles and websites published that rank individuals in order of greatest net worth. These articles are published because we as a society view their lives as desirable. They have achieved the ultimate utopia, and we want to know what this utopian amount, or “score” is. Even within our middle-class lives, we compare ourselves according to what things we have. It’s as if they define our importance as a human being, as the more our cars, clothes and homes are worth gives us a higher score and therefore brings us closer to the ultimate, yet unattainable utopia.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.celebritynetworth.com/list/top-100-richest-people-in-the-world/
This relates to the old saying “money can’t buy happiness”. I agree that our lives are surrounded by a utopia that imagines money as a way to measure success. Being ‘rich’ is often seen as living the good life or having it all. Money has such a strong hold over our ideals of success and happiness. This is a result of capitalist ideologies which promote individualism and a ‘dog eat dog’ mentality which fuels people’s desire to earn more money and buy expensive homes and cars which show off their wealth. The people who live the most satisfying lives are probably not the richest men/women in the world. The problem with this utopia is that equating monetary wealth with living a satisfactory life discounts how many average people who quite possibly might make minimum wage could be the happiest people around. The issue here is that “living a satisfying life” is opened to interpretation from person to person. We are told that being rich and making lots of money is the more important thing to strive for; but is it really?
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