Money can be everything and nothing at the same time

This week’s novel was ‘Money to Burn’ by Ricardo Piglia. I’m not sure how I felt about this book as it was action packed which kept me locked in at times, however, the way in which certain sexual acts or violence was described made me feel disgusted. Specifically, the descriptions of the young girl Blanca who lived with the gang, given shelter and cocaine in exchange for sex.

However, what stood out to me was the way money was described throughout the novel. As the novel points out, money is a tangible item and it is societal values that give money its worth, or more so power. As said by Dorda “money is just the same as drugs: what’s fundamental is its posession, knowing its there, touching it, checking its still in the cupboard” (31). There were a couple moments in the book which show how money is viewed, both from the gang member’s perspective as well as from a non criminal perspective.

Before burning the five million pesos, Dorda holds a 1,000-peso note and points out that a security guard would have had to work a fortnight to make what he held in his hand. Him and the criminals begin lighting these bills on fire and tossing them out the window. Crowds gasps at the sight of money being burnt to a crisp. The quote then follows:

“If money were the sole justification for the murders they committed, and if what they did, they did for the money they were now burning, that had no mean they had no morals nor motives, that they acted and killed gratuiously, out of taste for evil, out of pure evil, that they were born assassins, insenate criminals, degenerates” (157).

Money has been incentivized and is the most incentivized object in the world. Pratically everything done by humans is worked towards having this. When you use money to justify harmful actions, this tends to humanize a person more. This gives people a reason to be violent, selfish, monstrous, because it was done for a reason: to gain this tangible item we all need to survive. When you take that away, when you do bad things just to do bad things, there’s 0 empathy. And this is exactly what the gang pointed out by burning the money.

Following the act a TV presenter comments saying “burning innocent money is an act of cannibalism”, pointing out that if the criminals had handed the money over to the police, donated it to a charitable foundation, or to “improving prison conditions where they themselves are going to be held” things would be different (158).

This just goes to show how much value we place on money. It was compared to cannabilism, the act of human eating human because to throw away large sums of money is to kill another human. Overall I enjoyed how the criminals politically commented on how money can change the way we empathize, and I could understand why the burning the money was done rather than giving the police possession.

Honestly speaking, what is a heinous act would you forgive if given a large sum of money? What acts would you never forgive for any sum of money?