Is money the most important aspect of a Job?
Most people have some sort of bias against money, thinking that everything linked to money, no matter what the thing is, is evil. If money is really evil in itself, it must follow that money should never be a consideration in choosing a job. The validity of this argument, however, is seldom questioned. Only when we notice that money is merely a means of exchange and does not lead to any moral judgment in itself, we can then study the issue impartially.
The crux of the issue here is why we should take any job at all. Surely there are many reasons for taking a job, such as for professional respect, for the passion to serve the society, for some kind of social status?and, for money. In very rare cases do people ever choose their jobs for merely one of these reasons. Most of the times people work because they want to achieve a number of their personal goals. The most important aspect of their jobs will hence vary from person to person. Of course it is perfectly possible that a person may choose a job largely because of the generous pay that the employer offers. Everyone has to get enough money to survive. Hence if a person is currently living in a miserable condition and, out of his desperate desire for money, he accepts a job offer, the most important aspect of his job is most probably the money. And there is nothing morally wrong with that. The demand for money should surely prevail in this case.
However the need for certain minimum level of salary is only one of the considerations that people make when choosing jobs. It is hence also possible that the person is already rather rich even without a job, but he chooses to work to make himself happier. The pleasures of his career life may emerge from his passion for the profession or the social recognition he may get thereby, but no matter why he feels happy after taking the job, in this case money may only play an insignificant role, if any, in his job.
What have now been presented can actually be seen as the two extreme ends of the issue. Most likely is still that a person works both for his basic needs and for the pleasure specifically derived from the career life. Whether money will come out as the single most important determinant is hence dependent on the various possible cases, or more particularly, on the importance of the wages to his living standard. It is therefore rather ridiculous to give a general yes-or-no response to this question and it takes person judicious considerations before he decides to take a job.
