Economic conditions are the main driver of social behaviour

The more I study markets and human behavior, the clearer it becomes: economic forces shape our social choices far more than we care to admit. What we often frame as personal preferences or cultural shifts frequently have economic roots that we're reluctant to acknowledge.

Take the decision to have children. While we discuss this in terms of personal fulfilment or life priorities, isn't the rising cost of raising children—housing, education, healthcare—equally influential? When young adults choose to focus on themselves rather than start families, economic pressures often lurk beneath the surface of what appears to be lifestyle preference.

I've experienced this tension personally. People frequently ask why I'm not working in the field where I earned my degree. While passion and interests matter, the reality is that working at a university and pursuing purely intellectual pursuits felt like a luxury I couldn't afford at the time. Years later, I watch friends who stayed on the academic path complete their PhDs only to leave academia for industry internships. The pattern is telling.

This shouldn't surprise us. Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests that it's difficult to focus on intellectual fulfilment when basic security remains unmet. While financial security wasn't part of Maslow's original framework, in our current system, money has become the gateway to fulfilling nearly every other need.

For a long time, I struggled to give myself permission to prioritize financial stability. So I'll say it plainly: money matters. In the best-case scenario, it comes as a safety net from family wealth that allows you to explore higher ambitions freely. When that safety net doesn't exist, you have to build your own, sometimes putting those higher pursuits aside to address more fundamental needs. This is not only acceptable—it's rational.

Ideally, money would serve merely as a unit of exchange, freeing us to focus on genuinely productive activities. But that's not our reality. Our complex financial system profoundly impacts individual life choices, probably more than most of us want to acknowledge. This system is woven into the fabric of civilization, and understanding it helps us understand human behavior more clearly.

I wasn't happy when I first realized this. Something inside me was screaming that this isn't how things are supposed to be—that we should focus on fulfilling our highest purpose, not calculating every decision through an economic lens. For a moment, I felt like a passive victim of my circumstances. But over time, I found this realization increasingly empowering. Money matters, and you can integrate this understanding without sacrificing your other ambitions. What you can't do is deny reality in the name of your dreams.