Necessarily, this level of deification of material values downgrades the importance of the question of how these material values are acquired. At the ANC Conference in 1977, President Mandela quoted from an article by the financier George Sores to seek a more fundamental explanation of this social phenomenon. As the market has extended its sway, the fiction that people act on the basis of a given set of non-market values has become increasingly more difficult to maintain. What is more expensive is considered better. The value of a work of art can be judged by the prices it fetches.
People deserve respect and admiration because they are rich.
What used to be a medium of exchange has usurped the place of fundamental values, reversing the relationship postulated by economic theory. What used to be professions have turned into businesses. The cult of success has replaced a belief in principles. I am certain that the South Africans present will acknowledge the fact that what George Soros describes as applying to human society generally is very apposite with regard to our own national context. Obviously the options to ban money and to end the market economy are not options.