When Money Supersedes Morals

For as long as currency has been around, there have been people around to find ways to hurt their fellow man to gain more wealth. Whether it was snipping off pieces of gold, silver, or other valuable metal from coins, to selling out Jesus (depending on your religious and personal views) for 30 pieces of silver (most likely Tyrian shekels), or stealing a sale for commission from a fellow co-worker, people will often do things that would be against many other people's moral values.

People will fight for the almighty dollar today, step on each other's necks if they have to, but for what? When they go back home, can they honestly say to their family that they ethical in any sort of way? What happens when their kids ask a question about what's fair and what isn't when it concerns how they should treat others? Do the parents tell their kids the truth about what they have done?

Even with the way people will treat their fellow man to gain an extra dollar, it appears that things are worse today. Of course people did it in the past in different ways, but people hide it better in modern times. In the past you had people that sold "tonics" that would cure the average person, sell devices that would make you look or feel better, and even people that "sold" the Brooklyn Bridge over and over again. The thing was that most of the general public back then knew that these were conmen trying to dupe them out of their money.

Of course there have been scandals such as Bernie Madoff's pyramid scheme in the modern times, but otherwise, many of your people that set aside their integrity to make an extra dollar, are either a lot harder to detect or even accepted as just a part of everyday society. Many of the "1%" fit into this category, even if they legitimately started off trying to run an ethical business. To become extremely wealthy in today's society, it's commonly known that most of the wealthy stepped on at least a few necks to get where they are at.

But what does this say of the future? It's okay to set aside your integrity for an extra buck, as long as you hide it better or make a lot of money? If more and more people today don't teach their kids that morals should outweigh the power of making an extra dollar at the expense of their fellow man, tomorrow's society can turn into a financial version of the Old West. Is that really the type of society people want their children learning and facilitating when they grow up?