If money was no object…

A hypothetical question often asked (as it recently appeared on my Twitter timeline) is, ‘If money was no object, which country in the world would you rather live in?’

It got me thinking. You see, the thing is that if you are a billionaire, like this question hypothesises, there is no place that is not perfect for you. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say that the worst, least progressive, most oppressive, and most unequal societies in the world are probably the best places to live in than the more advanced, the more evolved, the more civilised, the more egalitarian ones. On the contrary, it might actually be a disadvantage to be a billionaire in a highly evolved society because the delta of how much better your life is from the poorest person in the same society may not be worth working so hard (and making the compromises you would need to make with your life) to earn your billions.

My contention is that the more civilised a society, the less it matters how much money you have to lead a happy, fulfilling, and dignified life. Indeed, that (how much money does it take to lead a good life) can be the very yardstick by which how evolved one’s society may be measured.

To conclude, in a perfect society, this presumption (of money being no object to one’s life choices) would apply to every single citizen. And such a question would be puzzling to the inhabitants of such a place. In fact, that this question is being asked means we do not live in such a society yet, and the existence of this question can in itself serve as a measure to deduce the kind of society we have built and are living in.