Money Is the only Thing That Really Motivates People

I. Introduction

Henry Fielding once said, Ў§Make money your god and it will plague you like the devilЎЁ.

Money presents in so many aspects of life. It seems that almost everything can be bought, with the high value attached to money. People are very addicted to money because of the idea that if you have money, you have the success, popularity, power and acceptance. But, there is always danger in losing values such as love for sports or being a hardworking person. A good example is the current trend in sports wherein top players in football or basketball are only interested in picking up their paycheques more than genuinely loving sports and achieving success in terms of being the best athletes they could be (Money is not the motivation 2004). There are nagging thoughts of what the real motivation is for entering a venture as the importance of money is becoming more and more hard-hitting these days.

As the quotation above says, is money societyЎ¦s new god? If so, can other values such as freedom, love, achievement or even motivation also be bought? This is precisely the topic of the paper. All of these things can be pointed back to money and see how people treat it today. Besides discussing the real functions of money, this paper will also attempt to answer not just the questions above but also investigate whether money is the only thing that really motivates people today.

II. Money as Motivation

Ў§MotivationЎЁ derives from the Latin verb Ў§movereЎЁ which means Ў§to moveЎЁ. Beck (2004, p.3) defined Motivation as an internal state which is the driving force that activates behaviour or gives directions to thoughts, feelings and actions of an organism.

The accumulation of wealth has become an important facet of society because of the increasing materialistic ideology spreading in the world. In addition, there is a growing concern for people to move upwards in society through earning or making more money.

It is undeniable fact that people are bowing to the demands of money as almost everything is rationed, administered or valued in terms of money (Ventura, 1995). With the high value attached to money, it connotes an idea that money is a motivation for people. For this paper, it will be discussed thoroughly in three areas: Psychology, Management and Education whereas arguments are supported by good examples found in literature which demonstrate the use of money as motivation.

A. Psychology

The desire to have money is ingrained in people today as explained by Ventura (1995) when he said that money has become the absolute standard of access and status. This desire is evident in many fields not only in commerce but also in education, justice and art, etc. Along with this desire is also the need to be valued which is manifested through unconscious or half-conscious actions by making money felt in the different aspects of life. Ventura (1995) pointed out that money has even affected intimate relationships: as in couples fighting viciously over money and property during divorces; or in friendships as a contest of dominance in who will pick the bill. These examples illustrate that the desire to have more money which will gain the person more of the increasing benefits attached to it. It further shows that money works insidiously to fan the flames of desire and need that it becomes a motivation. Thus, peopleЎ¦s lives today are inevitably revolving around making money in order to satisfy their momentarily need and desire, even though they are opposite to human and communal value of our work. These also touch another psychological aspect stated in Ventura (1995) Ў§money is, if not quite omnipotent, at least omnipresentЎЁ.

Why do people have such different behaviours? Motivation is one of the explanations we use when we try to account for the variability of behaviour. Under virtually identical circumstances, variations in individual behaviour may be due to differences in motivation. People have a hierarchy of needs that determines their actions, from MaslowЎ¦s Hierarchy of Needs (cited in Bartol, Tein, Matthews & Martin 2005, p.367), there are five needs presented in his famous Hierarchy of Needs pyramid (in decreasing importance order): Self-actualization, Esteem needs, Social needs, Security needs, Physiological needs. Say for example, Ў§I ate because I was hungry, I drank because I felt thirstyЎЁ it is simply at the lowest Physiological needs level so as to satisfy the basic human need. Unsatisfied needs is a force to motivate person to take actions, the higher the need, the less essential for survival, the longer it can be postponed. Different things appeals to different people, some employees might come to work for the paycheck, some of them for the friendships with colleagues, and some