Money shows who we are, but it doesn’t make us that way. The beliefs we hold, as discussed in the last post, become clear when we see how someone reacts to gaining or losing money. Their actions say more than words ever could.
In 1986, Wall Street trader Ivan Boesky told a graduating class at Berkeley, “Greed is all right. I think greed is healthy.” The movie Wall Street repeated this idea almost exactly a year later. Not long after, Boesky went to prison. How someone responds to that statement reveals a lot about their beliefs.
Sun, Moon, and Star Money
- People with a sun view see money as a tool. It can support education, health, and generosity, or it can cause harm. What matters is how it’s used, not how much there is. Sun people earn what they need, save a little extra, and use the rest to help others.
- People with a moon view often have good intentions, but sometimes let money take priority over their values. In his relationship psychology book What Money Can’t Buy, Michael Sandel gives examples like paying for better prison cells, buying access to carpool lanes, or even parents selling naming rights for their babies. These things aren’t obviously wrong, but they treat things that shouldn’t be for sale as if they are.
- People with a star view think everything can be bought, even people. As Oscar Wilde put it, they know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
How Much Is Enough?
This question draws the line between being content and always wanting more. In the documentary I AM, author Thom Hartmann explains it well. Imagine someone cold and alone at night. If you give them a fire, a blanket, and some soup, they quickly become happy. Many people think that if a little comfort brings happiness, then more will bring even greater happiness. But it doesn’t work like that. Chasing more rarely brings the security people hope for.
What People Will Do to Get It
At this point, the three groups act very differently. Sun people earn money honestly. Moon people sometimes bend the rules when it suits them. Star people, as Lincoln said, find ways to turn legal rights into moral wrongs. How someone gets their money reveals more about them than what they do with it afterward.
A Working Example: Mondragon
After the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Mondragon was left in ruins. A young priest named Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta helped rebuild it using a new approach. In 1956, he and five graduates from the technical college he started helped launch what became the Mondragon cooperative movement.
The structure has stayed simple, and the cooperative still operates today:
- Workers buy a share in the company they work for.
- There are no outside investors, so owners and workers are the same people.
- Pay is capped in relation to the lowest-paid worker. Workers elect their own directors and managers.
- Profits are split between the community, a reserve fund, and the workers, in that order.
Today, Mondragon is the largest cooperative organization in the world. It has over 100 affiliated companies, more than 80,000 workers, and brings in tens of billions in annual revenue. It’s not a charity, but a real business model. People tend to care more about what they own. A company can make a profit and still treat workers’ well-being as just as important as profits.
The Real Question
The sun, moon, and star ways of thinking about money aren’t really about how much someone has. They’re about what people believe money should be used for. Shine Brighter often suggests a simple exercise: sit down with your family and talk honestly about what is truly enough, and how any extra could help others meet their needs. Having that conversation helps create a sun view of money. No budgeting app can do that.
