"Money Doesn't Matter"

We live in a society which few will deny is defined by its capitalistic nature and market values are treated as ultimately the only values that matter; where "success" and "failure" and status and power are equated with money to the point of individuals being "worth" what they have; where it is impossible to meet one's most basic physical needs at all without acquiring a certain not very low minimum sum of money such that many die all the time for its lack and comfort, all as a dignity and freedom are impossible without a good deal more money than that; where any responsible individual is supposed to orient their whole life and the upbringing of their children toward the making of money; where those who have more money than they can ever spend in a lifetime organize society around the maximization of their chances to make as much more money in as short a time as possible with the consequences for everyone and everything else irrelevant to them regardless of how disastrous they may well be, "Let the bodies pile in their thousands" merely the beginning of such callousness, as they concede absolutely nothing to claims for any other good.

Yet we are also told constantly that "Money doesn't matter."

How does one reconcile this contradiction?

One can do it very simply by recognizing that the statement that "Money doesn't matter" is a lie, or at the very least incomplete. When people tell you that "Money doesn't matter" what they mean is that your not having money does not matter to them, all as, of course, their having money matters enormously to them.

In short, it is a hypocritical screen for callousness--and an exceedingly stupid one at that. Alas, stupid hypocrisy on behalf of callousness is par for the course in this culture.