CHAPTER TWO

New and Improved!

Funny Money

Here’s a peek into the Medici bank in 15th- century Florence (now part of Italy). LOOK AND LEARN/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

How can you make a piece of paper worth ten dollars? First, you need to get many, many people to value it in the same way. And if you can get a whole country to agree, then you’ve got a new currency.

Money is funny stuff. As we found out in Chapter One, long ago people worked for useful goods like salt or sugar. Then people invented coins to represent goods because bits of metal were easier to carry around. Those with too much money to carry around could put it in banks. These days, in some parts of the world, instead of using bills and coins, we stick a plastic card into a bank machine, and the bank adjusts its records. If we want to know how much money we have, we can look it up online or ask the bank for a printout. In other words, adults aren’t working for salt or even bits of metal anymore. We work to raise a number in our bank’s records!

Of course, people want those higher numbers because the higher the number, the more we can buy. Being able to buy something gives us power. Did you know that each time we buy an item, we set in motion a whole system of human activities—a chain of events that often stretches around the world?

We Demand a Big Supply!

The toy Slinky was so popular in the 1940s that the United States included it on a postage stamp a few decades later. CATWALKER/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Picture the latest, greatest toy on the market: the incredible Zoomzapperoo! You’ve been saving up for months to buy one, and when you finally come home with the box tucked under your arm, Sam from across the street comes over for a look. The next day, your entire class crowds around you on the playground, and a week later, half the kids you know have bought their own Zoomzapperoos.

Marbles have been a popular children’s toy for hundreds of years. Kids and grandparents alike enjoy playing in Istanbul, Turkey. GOGOSVM/ISTOCK.COM

Child labor is common in many parts of the world. This girl was working as a servant for a wealthy family in India. BISWARUP GANGULY/WIKIMEDIA.ORG

Now picture a woman sitting behind a rickety old desk in a small office. She’s the proud inventor of the Zoomzapperoo, and she’s just learned that it’s so popular that she’ll need to make far more. (In business terms, she’d say there’s so much demand for her invention that she’ll need to increase the supply.) This is fantastic news because now she’ll be able to buy more supplies and pay workers to make more Zoomzapperoos. And best of all, she’ll still have money left over. Yahoo! She jumps up and dances around her desk. She’s going to be rich, rich, rich!

A boy rakes cocoa beans on a drying rack. Many children work for little or no pay to help produce chocolate for wealthier countries. ILRF/ROBIN ROMANO

Paying for What?!

Companies earn money by making a profit. (That’s the money left over after they’ve bought materials and paid their workers.) The less they pay to make their product, the bigger their profit. Unfortunately, what’s good for a company’s profit isn’t always good for its workers or the Earth.

Many countries have strict laws about work. The government decides the minimum age for workers, how long a workday can be, and how much workers get paid. Government officials make sure companies follow the rules. Making a product in these countries is more expensive because companies have to pay their workers much more than in other countries where the government doesn’t pay much attention to workers and their rights.

Industries don’t set out to destroy the environment, but if they refuse to pay for cleanup, this is what happens. SUGIYONO83/DREAMSTIME.COM

Often, North American and European companies choose to make their products in other countries, where they can pay workers very little, can demand a very long workday and don’t need to be picky about the age of their workers. In some places, children spend their days picking cotton for T-shirts that North Americans wear, mining for metals to be used in Japanese cell phones or making rugs that lie on European floors. The small amount of money that these kids earn will help keep their families from starving. And by paying these workers very little, North American and European companies can make more money every time they sell one of their products.

Governments in several countries also control how manufacturers treat the Earth. For example, some gold-mining techniques are dangerous for local water supplies, spilling toxins like arsenic into the groundwater. Canada has strict rules against these procedures, and so Canadian mining companies are very careful when mining in Canada. But when they mine in the Dominican Republic and Argentina, where rules aren’t so strict, they pollute the water in ways that they would never dare at home! Environmental cleanup is expensive, and so some companies try to avoid it whenever possible.

FACT SHARE: About 168 million kids around the world are involved in child labor.

Money Talks

Scientists estimate that for every pound of product we buy, forty pounds of trash are pumped into the environment. Waterways are filling up with chemicals. Landfills are overflowing with garbage. The air in various parts of the world is turning brown. Not all of this is due to factories, but manufacturers contribute hugely to global pollution.

Hundreds of years ago, before the Industrial Revolution, people mostly bought things from people they knew, and word got around quickly about where sellers got their materials and how they treated others. (For example, if a cheesemaker used milk that he’d stolen from a neighbor’s cow, no one would buy his cheese anymore.) These days, we buy things from all over the world, and it’s hard to know which companies are kind to their workers and to the Earth. We certainly can’t find out from the packaging! Can you imagine a cell-phone box showing pictures of a kid in a factory in India, almost falling asleep as he makes the tiny parts? Or an image of dead frogs in the pond where the factory dumps chemical waste? Some companies care more about their profit than anything else, but they don't want their customers to know that.

These were some of my very favorite dolls when I was a kid. MICHELLE MULDER

My Two Cents' Worth

When I was six, I saved my allowance for months to buy a certain doll. Our local stores had sold out, so my dad and I drove forty minutes downtown and stood outside with dozens of other parents until the department store opened. When the doors unlocked, we raced up the escalators to the toy section. I grabbed a doll and bolted toward the cashier. Halfway along, a woman snatched the doll from my arms and kept running. My dad ran faster, though, and snatched the doll back. Boy, was the woman embarrassed!

FACT SHARE: The oldest records of bank deposits are almost two thousand years old.

More or Less

In many countries, kids make their own toys instead of buying them. This boy in Sudan made his own toy car. JOHN WOLLWERTH/DREAMSTIME.COM

Companies that treat both their workers and the Earth with respect have higher costs when they make their products. In order to make a profit and survive as a company, they need to put higher price tags on the items they sell. And that’s a risk. Some customers won’t be able to afford the products. And folks who do have enough money might not want to pay that much. After all, the less we pay for one item, the more money we have left for other purchases, and being able to buy as many items as possible is a sign of a smart shopper…right?

Actually, this attitude is part of the problem. We’re so concerned about that number on our bank statement that we forget about how our purchases affect the rest of the planet. And all our buying is using up more of Earth’s resources than ever before. Each year, we’re using resources far faster than the Earth can make more. The strange thing is that some people are still hungry and don’t have adequate food or shelter, while others have too much food and even too many things to fit into their houses.

FACT SHARE: The word "wealth" comes from an Old English word meaning a person’s “health and well-being.” These days, wealth means having lots of money.

Where to Put It All?

Since the 1950s, North American families have gotten smaller and houses have gotten bigger, but often families still don’t have enough space for all their possessions. One common solution is to rent space to store the stuff that doesn’t fit at home, and North America is now home to over 53,000 self-storage facilities. That’s the same as 38,000 football fields devoted to storing possessions that are overflowing from houses!

Why do people own so much stuff? And why do we hold on to it when we don’t use it anymore? Back in Chapter One, we saw how people’s attitudes toward our possessions have changed over the years. Cave dwellers didn’t want to own anything that they couldn’t carry with them. Later, families generally owned what they could make themselves. During the Industrial Revolution, people began to buy items that they couldn’t make themselves. Money (as well as the stuff it can buy) has become one of the most important signs of success. And if we think of our possessions as a way of showing how much money we have, it makes perfect sense that we don’t want to get rid of anything!

Paying the Price

Strangely, studies suggest that people with more possessions aren’t necessarily happier than those with fewer. In fact, they might be less happy than those who have just enough. Some scientists say this unhappiness is a natural result of consumerism (when people believe in spending a lot of money on products and services). Manufacturers produce more and more products, and shoppers (consumers) buy them up as fast as they can be produced. Advertising suggests what to buy next, and consumers are always on the hunt for more and better products. Some critics of consumerism say that this ongoing search for something new makes people constantly unhappy with what they already have.

This isn’t just a room—it’s a whole house! Some families choose tiny, more affordable houses so they can work less and enjoy more free time. KIM KASL/BLESSTHISTINYHOUSE.COM

Other critics say that focusing on consumption, rather than human relationships, is the cause of unhappiness. Remember all those happy shoppers in the 1950s? The war was over, and people were making more money than ever before. (Also, for the first time ever, people could use plastic cards called credit cards, which let them buy things now and pay later. Folks have been shopping with borrowed money—and owing more and more money to the banks—ever since.) People could spend money on both items and services, paying businesses to do tasks that neighbors or family members used to do for each other. A family could hire a babysitter, a housecleaner and even someone to build a back porch.

The more goods and services people bought, the more they had to work to earn money to pay for it all. And the more they worked, the less time they had for friends, family and neighbors. Relationships with other people went from being one of the most important parts of daily life to being something that everyone had less and less time to enjoy.

FACT SHARE: "To consume" used to mean “to use up and destroy.” A few hundred years ago, no one would have wanted to be called a consumer!

A New Kind of Rich

Volunteers in Toronto, ON, are transforming their neighborhood with creative ideas. José Ortega's vibrant art helps create a beautiful place for his community to share. HELDER RAMOS

Environmental destruction. Poverty. Depression. People are working hard to solve each of these problems. But some believe that all three are linked, and that we can solve them all at the same time by changing our relationship to money and to each other.

What if we could meet all our needs while getting to know our neighbors and protecting the environment? Around the world, people are questioning the need to own so much stuff, leaning toward more sustainable lifestyles, and creating a whole new concept of wealth.

Getting together with neighbors can be a fun—and free!—way to spend an afternoon. RADIOKAFKA/DREAMSTIME.COM