Agreeing

With all the disagreement going on in the world about politics, religion and just about everything else, it's nice to know there's one thing everyone agrees on.

What is that? you may ask.

It's money.

Money is only bits of paper or metal or even references to those things. The only reason it has any value at all is because everybody agrees that it has.

Even the gold standard only worked because everyone agreed that gold was valuable.

You can't eat it, cook with it, build houses or make clothes with it, but it is pretty and rare.

Money isn't even pretty or rare, though most people would like to have more of it.

All of us work for it, trade it for things we want or need, or hoard it.

It would be interesting to see what the world would be like if money didn't exist.

Maybe there are creatures on planets in other galaxies who have advanced societies without money. (Okay, my writerly imagination is coming into play here.)

But here and now, we can be grateful that at least there is one thing we can agree about.