Sarah and Charlotte think about money.

Sarah:
Deniro. Fat cheddah stacks. Loot. Dough. Cash. Money.
We all know what I'm talking about here: the kaching a ling. If you are not yet annoyed by this post and its blatantly attention grabbing intro, be prepared to be annoyed because it is a rant about money. And everyone's heard a money-rant, one way or another - why do we use it if it's just paper? What significance does it even hold for us anymore? Blah blah blah.
In some ways, money could even be viewed as a noble thing. It is a symbolic measure of how much work we have put into our lives, a measure of our merit. In theory, it is probably best left as a symbolic, metaphorical thing. That way it encourages people to do something that will contribute to society as a whole, rather than searching around panning for gold or mining valuable ores. These rarities have intrinsic value, but what does that do for humanity?
On the other hand, there are still thievery and illegal industries to consider. What happens to the merit-based value of money when it is gleaned in such ways? If only there was a way to void a bill when it falls into the wrong hands. Like, if money was just slightly conscious, had just the ability to discern morality...sci-fi bioengineered money. That's what we need.
But seriously. Not only do we have to consider the intentions of the seller in this case (ie. let us consider a drug dealer - clearly not exactly well-intentioned in selling their product) but also the intentions of the buyer (AKA the person pouring money into the drug trade). The buyer may have gotten this money through legitimate means. For drama's sake, let's pretend it's a lawyer with the whole nuclear family deal, but a crack-cocaine addiction on the side. So, by day he defends the law, and by night he breaks it and sullies his well-earned cash. What does money mean anymore in this case?! It is meant to measure the efforts of the lawyer, doing right by humanity, and therefore is symbolic of something good. Yet it immediately becomes symbolic of something bad as soon as the lawyer is given free will to spend it as he wishes.
Of course there are safeguards in place to try to prevent money from becoming tainted in this way, to preserve its goodness, ie. the law making purchase and sale of crack-cocaine illegal. Overall, it seems humankind desires to keep the meritocracy. Charlotte?

Charlotte:
 Well, I guess when Sarah said she was writing a rant about money, I expected it to be about the misery of worrying about tuition or something. But apparently we're more philosophical than that. Luckily, I have spent enough time on roadtrips in my life that I have a set of thoughts about almost any topic you care to name (along with a broad knowledge of Shania Twain lyrics). While Sarah is thinking about the difficulties of money as an indicator of moral worth, I've always imagined money as basically representative of food rather than worth.
Think about it. In a world without money, you'd basically have to spend all day looking for food and trying not to get killed (like every other animal on this planet). The only thing that allows people to do other stuff (make cabinets, write pop songs, sell crack cocaine) is a way of trading cabinets, pop songs and cocaine for the food that they actually need to survive. So when I think about buying a house, I envision trading an enormous pile of groceries for the deed to your new abode. Although that kind of thinking can bring a whole new level of confusion to thinking about macroeconomic systems.
I think I'm going to stop there because I know just slightly more than nothing about economics. If I'm going to deal with semi-fictional systems, I pick literature any day. So I leave you there, with the idea that your debit card is symbolically a large piece of mammoth meat.

Sarah:
BUT, I would say that money still measures your moral worth. Are you a good enough person to deserve food, is the question. I think the idea is, if you work hard enough, by our system that means we consider you an asset and therefore we will give you this paper that in turn gets you your food that in turn allows you to continue living. If you don't do enough to impress us or to benefit us, then yeah, you will have to scrounge for your food with whatever meagre money you can come by. (cutthroat world, I know.) It's like, the final frontier of survival of the fittest. By measuring people by their merit we inadvertently select out many people, perhaps not in their ability to reproduce as fitness has previously been measured, but in their possession of a passable standard of living. As Charlotte has said though, we lack the knowledge of economics to make any broad statements about this. Economic depression of many areas makes extending this generality to a global level completely ridiculous. But hey, here in Canada, maybe it's something to think about.
I mean, there are several other amenities equally important to food that we would have to wander around for, too, if we were moneyless like all those primitive other animals. Just think of how poorly equipped humans would be if money were to lose its value all of a sudden. We're these pale, weak things that have no way to keep warm or protected from the elements without money. I suppose if money never came into invention we would be a little tougher, but at this point in time it would just be a mass die-off. Interesting to imagine if we had never gotten so cozy with currency what life would be like now. Probably we would never have traveled very far north and we would still be on the barter system...so maybe not so exciting. Money: a double edged sword.