Money is a dangerous double-edged sword.
Money is central to the functioning of today’s world.
Since the vast majority of humans left behind the barter economy, where they traded through exchange, money has been key in the development of societies. Obviously, a society that exchanges money with a specific value is more efficient than another society that has to constantly determine the relative value of the products they exchange.
But despite being a powerful tool for human culture, money has ceased to be just a useful tool. The relationship between humans and the wealth that money represents has brought out the worst in us countless times , repeating itself throughout history.
One of the ways in which money is clearly capable of altering the lives of human beings is the obsession with money, sometimes known as crematomania, which we will talk about in this article.
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What is crematomania?
Crematomania is nothing more than the impulsive desire to accumulate wealth, which can lead individuals who suffer from it to prioritize this goal above all others. In today’s society, a person who is incredibly motivated to make money and pathologically unable to think about the consequences would fit right into the market economy.
This is because markets are nothing more than profit-maximizing tools, whereby companies grow through practices that increase revenue while spending as little as possible. A person with a money obsession works, in a way, like a financial market .
The problem is that markets are virtual entities, without needs or affective relationships, and a person is a social being with needs that go beyond economic growth. The obsession with money ends up degrading social interactions and the way of seeing the world of those affected by it .
What causes the obsession with money?
Despite the large number of legends, stories, proverbs and quotes from wise people who warn us about our greed, the monetary obsession exists strongly in our society. Every year the wealth we produce increases, but this wealth falls into the hands of a few individuals who, far from distributing it, tend to accumulate it and use it only if this will give them more profit.
According to Intermón Oxfam, in 2018 the 26 richest people in the world had more money than the 3,500,000,000 human beings with fewer resources. Which is the same, 26 people had the same purchasing power as half of humanity put together . This completely illogical situation attends to certain psychological reasons.
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money brings pleasure
The human being, like the rest of the animals, tends to repeat the behaviors that cause him pleasure. This is what drives us to eat, reproduce, etc. If we think for a moment about the amount of pleasant experiences that derive from the accumulation of money, it is not surprising that some people develop an unhealthy obsession with it.
There comes a point for some people where this relationship between money and pleasure loses the intermediary of the economic transaction. It is money, at this point, that produces the greatest pleasure for those who suffer from crematomania. An obsession that can blind us to the consequences of our actions, in order to see the number of our bank account grow.
Although it is normal to be happy about receiving money, scientists have discovered that after a certain income bracket, happiness does not increase due to earning more per year . This figure of “maximum monetary amount for happiness” is approximately 75,000 US dollars per year.
For healthy individuals, chasing amounts above those discussed above does not in itself cause happiness. For those affected by crematomania, this limit is diffused and it only gives pleasure to increase wealth, regardless of its size.
money represents power
The highest strata of societies have something in common, that their members are high-income individuals . This association between people of power and money is present in our lives constantly. Many come to forget that it is thanks to the efforts of others (such as family members, employees, teachers, etc.) that they have reached the place where they are.
The reality is that privileged people do not feel like such, they only feel that their efforts have been duly rewarded and that if others had worked as hard as they, they would most likely have reached a position similar to theirs. Nothing is further from the truth, unfortunately.
The need for empowerment is typical in those with certain emotional or self-esteem deficiencies . They need to be rewarded for their efforts and feel superior to others. Accumulating large amounts of money gives them a status symbol, a foothold of their ego from where they can feel comfortable.
At the same time, focusing one’s identity on the material is a recipe for disaster: there will always be someone with more money or more money to raise . Money can disappear quickly, a constant threat in the minds of those who suffer from crematomania, since from one day to the next their reason for living can disappear.
This obsessive thought can end up controlling people’s lives, forcing them to hoard money while spending as little as possible, to avoid losing it.
Conclusions about crematomania
Unfortunately for some, the endless accumulation of wealth is not a viable long-term path. Our planet has limited resources and a finite capacity to support life on it . If we grow our wealth without control, we will be destroying not only what we enrich ourselves with, but also what allows us to stay alive.
Fortunately, money is not everything for the vast majority of people. We are increasingly realizing that certain forms of enrichment, although effective, only benefit a few. Those of us who do not have a pathological obsession with money must remember that, despite its usefulness and danger, it is only a tool that we can use for our common benefit.
Bibliographic citations
- It’s about money. (2013). Neurology. Clinical practice, 3(5), 365.
- Whillans, AV, Dunn, EW, Smeets, P., Bekkers, R., & Norton, MI (2017). Buying time promotes happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114(32), 8523–8527.
- Smith R. (2006). Conflicts of interest: how money clouds objectivity. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99(6), 292–297.
To the classic question “what do you do?” I always answer “basically I am a psychologist”. In fact, my academic training has revolved around the psychology of development, education and community, a field of study influenced my volunteer activities, as well as my first work experiences in personal services.