The power of money

Submitted by Gabe Richard

Submitted to Mr. Scott Kemp

ENG 3UI

July 23, 2010

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 Money transmits a message better than words in this society. It has become a

source of power today. Long ago, people were trading goods and services in exchange

for other goods and services. Once gold was discovered, it was used as a means of

putting value on each good and service, some being valued higher than others. As the

gold supply was slowly getting depleted, the economy had to find another means of

being able to buy various goods and services. Hence came forth the cheapest way to

create value, which was a piece of paper. It is amazing how a small piece of paper

can be worth as much as an animal or even a human being. In the book “Slumdog

Millionaire”, Vikas Swarup” writes about how powerful money is and how the goal to

achieve wealth makes people lose their self respect and morals. The author also

writes about money being capable of buying human lives. In the book “Slumdog

Millionaire”, Vikas Swarup writes about how the world is revolving around money, just

a few pieces of paper.

Money has become very important in this world. People revert to drastic

measures to try and achieve wealth, losing their self-respect and morals. In the book

“Slumdog Millionaire”, the main character named Ram Mohammad Thomas has 50 000

rupees with him on a train. He is taking a lot of care of this amount of money since it

is worth a lot in India, where he resides. The train ends up being robbed and the

robbers are stealing anything of great value that might even slightly get them money.

When the robber entered Ram’s compartment, holding a gun he said, “OK, now I want

you to hand over all your valuables. Put them in the sack. I want men to hand over

their wallets and watches and any cash in their pockets, the ladies to hand me their

purses, bangles and gold chains. If there is anyone who does not comply with my

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instructions, I will shoot him dead instantly.”(Vikas Swarup, page 154) This is a strong

threat that is created by the desperation of the robber’s strive for great wealth. The

robber believes that wealth is more important to have and if human lives need to be

sacrificed, it will be done. Money has become very much overvalued and has led

people’s lives to revolve around money. Money is capable of buying anything, and

because of this people turn to drastic measures to acquire it. A good example in the

book is when a maid, that is also a princess, is not wealthy enough to produce a very

big wedding for her sister and she decides to steal from her employer’s safe. She was

talking to Ram about what she was going to steal saying, “I am not going to steal

money, because that will be detected immediately, but I am thinking of making off

with a necklace. She has so many in that safe, she wouldn’t even notice.” (page 262)

The princess is no longer taking in account of her own morals, but rather she is

thinking about what she was going to steal. The need for wealth has clouded people’s

minds to the point where morals and self-respect are no longer essential in people’s

lives. This major loss can lead to many horrible deeds. One example of this is when

Ram was working at a pub, serving customers with drinks and snacks. After the pub

had closed, there was one man, named Prakash Rao, who stood in the pub weeping

over the troubles of his life. He explained his life’s story to Ram in which he

mentioned using voodoo dolls against his brother in order to cause him pain and

eventually convict him in a mental institution where he was killed by electrical shocks

to the brain. After he discovered how the voodoo doll works, Prakash said, “Over the

next two months, the doll became a little secret toy for me. I poured all my

frustration, all my latent resentment against my brother into it. I took perverse

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pleasure in causing him pain and suffering. It became a source of demented

amusement for me.”(page 140) Prakash was causing his brother pain since his brother

has recently caught him trying to steal money from the company’s funds. As a

consequence, he lost his high position in the company. He wanted to have lots of

money for his wife and himself and they were doing everything possible to get it.

Inflicting pain on his own brother seemed to be the only way to take over the

company. The brother was eventually declared mad and the company was inherited

by Prakash. Although he had once again achieved wealth, his morals and self-respect

were completely ignored, costing the life of his own brother. People’s hopes and

dreams are no longer based on what makes them happy but rather the amount of

money that they have. Their entire life revolves around money rather than their own

personal happiness. Money has become so important that it causes all people to lose

their morals and self-respect in order to have it.

Money is capable of buying anything in this world. These pieces of paper are

capable of buying human lives. In today’s society, many rich people use their money

to buy human lives for their own purposes. One example in the book is when Ram and

his good friend Salim have been picked up and put to live in a juvenile home at the

age of 8. Every once in a while there would be a man coming to get kids to live with

him. Ram thought the man was adopting them until the day came when the person,

nicknamed Maman, was about to get Salim to come with him. The owner of the

juvenile home successfully pressured Maman into getting Ram as well saying “I am

sorry Maman, but I insist. If you take Salim, you will have to take Thomas. It is a

package deal… Yes. Buy one, get one free. I won’t charge you for Thomas.” (page 87)

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This revealed that Maman was actually buying the kids from the juvenile owner.

Money was more valuable to the juvenile owner than the lives of unfortunate

children. He was buying kids for his own business, which was to make kids beg for

money. He would mutilate them to make a better income and would leave the

children unfed for the rest of the day if they made less than 100 rupees. Ram later on

was also forced to buy his girlfriend out of the mess she was put in by her family. Her

own brother was holding her against her will to make money off her prostitution. Ram

fell in love with this girl, named Nita, and wanted her to come live with him. The

brother agrees to it saying, “I can allow her to marry, but only on one condition. That

the man who marries her agrees to compensate me for my loss of earnings... Let’s

say... four lakh rupees. Can you get me that sum of money? he laughs.”(page 263-264)

The brother has sarcastically agreed to the marriage and is only willing to give up his

sister for 400 000 rupees. That is a fortune and Ram will almost never be able to

achieve. The brother only sees his sister as a “goose with golden eggs” and he wants

the “golden eggs” to keep coming. Ram is forced to buy his wife, making money as

valuable as a human life. Human lives should never be worth a few pieces of paper

saying an amount of value on it; they are more than that. Unfortunately, this is the

case, and the world created by humans supports sales of humans through money,

making the world revolve around it.

The power of money has greatly increased from the time it was first created.

Money was first only a means of putting value on food and clothing. It slowly started

getting higher value, being able to pay for services performed by various companies.

As more and more money was being sent into the economy, it started being used as a

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means of buying almost anything of use to humans. They would buy food, clothing,

services, houses, animals and many more. The economy started booming from this

new way of buying items and the value of money rose to the point of being a means of

power over others. Ram needed money in order to survive and he ended up letting

other people be his master in exchange for it. When Ram eventually escaped from the

grasp of Maman and his thugs, he went to work for an actress named Neelima Kumari.

He would be the house’s servant; doing everything he is asked without being allowed

to have a voice of his own. When the house where he worked was getting robbed, he

alerted the owner and then the owner started being friendly with the robber instead

of calling the police. The owner starts talking to the robber and immediately turns to

Ram saying, “Ram, what are you doing standing with a phone in your hand? Can’t you

see we have a guest in the house? Go, get two cups of tea and some biscuits.” (page

216) Neelima Kumari didn’t care about calling the police and letting the police take

care of the robber. She would rather put Ram back to work like a slave, ignoring his

opinion on the matter. After serving the guest, he was immediately sent back to

house duty, unable to take part in the discussion at all. He was being isolated from

the events happening at his workplace. Later in his life, Ram worked for an Australian

Officer. Ram was forced to work every day with no time off, earning enough money to

barely sustain him for a few days. The family wouldn’t pay him what he deserved

because they considered him a “bloody Indian”. Ram was letting himself get stepped

on for a little amount of money that would keep him alive. One day, one of the

servants was caught after stealing the officer’s daughter’s bra. Ram was also blamed

for this and the wife immediately exploded in rage, slapping Ram over the face three

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to four times screaming, “You bloody Indians; all of you are just the same. Nothing

but ungrateful bludgers. We feed you and clothe you and this is what you give us in

return, trying to flog our stuff?”(page 116) Ram was forced to take this blame and

keep silent, in order to seem innocent and hopefully keep his job. He was forced to

take all the insults and hits stricken upon him without defending himself. Ram was

dependent on this family. Poor people are forced to live under the powerful influence

of the rich who give them the means to barely survive, just like Ram has for both the

famous actor Neelima Kumari as well as the Australian Officer. Unfortunately, Salim

ended up working for a rich person as well. He was a Muslim assassin which always

made Salim keep his house clean, giving him no time off at all. He was only to take

care of the cleaning and cooking part and not touch anything else in the house. Salim

told Ram about a restriction he had saying, “From time to time, Ahmed would receive

large yellow envelopes by courier. I had strict instructions not to touch this mail and

to leave it on the dining table for him.”(196) Salim had to listen to all the rules, in

order to get fairly paid. He was forced to always keep quiet, being a slave with no

voice in the eyes of his employer. He was driven by the goal to make money in order

to keep himself alive. The rich people truly have power over poor people, offering

them money in return for their services. Both Ram and Salim were forced to indulge

whatever insults or restrictions were forced upon them, in order to receive money

that would barely be enough to keep them alive. The rich receive a great amount of

power over others through the use of their wealth, making the world revolve around

their money. This power creates once again a great division between people, just like

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in the medieval times when there was the noble class and the servant class. If the

power of the rich keeps rising, the world will be doomed to repeat history.

Money overall controls the world of human beings. From the time it was

created, its value increased to the point of making the whole world revolve around it.

Money is capable of many awful things throughout the world. Because of the value of

money, people without it are forced to commit to immoral and corrupt actions in

order to be able to provide food for their families. On the other hand, people with

lots of money are capable of controlling the poor, giving them the power to hire

slaves. This power creates classes among people, bringing a division among all the

people of Earth. Since the value of money is exponentially high, it is considered more

valuable than a human life. Mere pieces of paper are more valuable to humanity than

their own lives. With the world revolving around money and the distribution of it, it

becomes more powerful than man. With money in power, everybody is doomed to be

corrupt and create a division among their peers and families, repeating history and

going to war once again for one sole purpose; to become rich.

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 Work Cited

Swarup, Vikas. Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel. New York: Scribner, 2008. Print.