From the book: Money is a Complex Product
Author: Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between money, spirituality, and the meaning of life in light of GAESEMA Philosophy and the thought of Angolan philosopher Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo. It argues that money, while playing a fundamental role in mediating social exchanges and structuring the economy, has clear limits regarding its ability to foster happiness, inner peace, and existential fulfillment. Whereas GAESEMA Philosophy understands money as an expression of human production and a reflection of both individual and collective spirituality, Miguel Ângelo emphasizes the need to rescue the ontological essence of money, linked to material and immaterial production. His critique highlights that contemporary systems have transformed money into an instrument of oppression, dissociating it from the human producer and suffocating its existential centrality. The study concludes that without an ethical and spiritual understanding of money, societies risk subverting the cosmic order of human relations, privileging the abstract value of currency over the human and productive value.

Keywords: Money; Spirituality; GAESEMA Philosophy; Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo; Production; Ethics.

Introduction

Money constitutes one of the most powerful symbols of contemporary social life. On one hand, it enables the acquisition of goods and services; on the other, it raises philosophical and spiritual questions about its limits and implications. GAESEMA Philosophy proposes that money should be understood as an expression of human production and as a reflection of both individual and collective morality. Yet, there are essential aspects of life that transcend its logic: inner peace, spirituality, love, and happiness.

Within this horizon, Angolan thinker Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo denounces the emptying of money’s original meaning in contemporary societies. For him, currency has come to hold more value than the very human being who produces it, shifting the center of social life from the producer to the monetary symbol. This article brings together GAESEMA Philosophy and Miguel Ângelo’s reflections to investigate the limits of money and the necessity of its ethical and spiritual re-signification.

Theoretical Framework

GAESEMA Philosophy argues that money is not merely an economic convention, but a symbolic representation of human labor and collective creativity. Its true value emerges from ethical production and responsible use for the common good. Thus, a distinction must be made between material value (quantifiable and negotiable) and spiritual value (intangible, related to purpose and meaning in life).

Miguel Ângelo, in turn, maintains that the essence of money must be directly linked to production or transformation, whether material or immaterial, physical or spiritual. In his critique, the centrality of human life is suffocated by political and economic systems that subordinate the producer to the abstract value of currency. The result is an ontological displacement: money acquires primacy over the very life that generates it.

This tension between the essence and the use of money forms the starting point of the philosophical reflection proposed here.

Analysis and Discussion

1. Money and the Meaning of Life

For GAESEMA Philosophy, money is limited in its ability to provide life’s essentials. It may mediate exchanges, but it does not guarantee inner peace or happiness. Miguel Ângelo expands this reflection by denouncing that contemporary society, in overvaluing currency, suffocates the very essence of the human being, reducing the producer to a position inferior to printed paper.

2. Production and Spirituality

GAESEMA thought associates spirituality with ethical and creative production, understanding labor as an act of cosmic expression. Miguel Ângelo converges with this view by affirming that every form of production — intellectual, material, or spiritual — possesses ontological value. Yet, he criticizes governments for structuring economic plans disconnected from the centrality of the producer, privileging financial abstractions instead.

3. The Illusion of Purchasable Happiness

The notion that money can buy happiness proves to be an illusion. Wealthy societies often face high rates of depression and stress, demonstrating the insufficiency of currency as a source of existential meaning. For Miguel Ângelo, true happiness lies in the act of producing with cosmic purpose, not in serving the selfish will of political or administrative systems that subordinate the human to the monetary.

4. The Ethical and Cosmic Collapse of Nations

By replacing authentic production with abstract monetary value, societies move toward a rupture of the cosmic order. Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo warns that this process opens the way to the spiritual and political decay of nations, as values cease to correspond to the natural functioning of the cosmos. Currency, when dissociated from its productive essence, becomes an instrument of social destruction.

5. Money as a Mirror of Morality and Theoretical Integration

Money has never been merely metal or paper; it is, above all, a mirror of the individual and collective morality of a people. As Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo argues in the GAESEMA Philosophy, money is intrinsically linked to production: when it emerges from just production, it becomes an instrument of shared prosperity; when it divorces itself from ethics, it turns into a weapon of oppression.

This reflection resonates with the thought of Karl Marx, who saw money as the “universal equivalent” capable of corrupting human relations, transforming virtues into commodities. For Marx, the danger arises when money ceases to serve production and begins to dominate the producer. Likewise, Jean Bodin, in the 16th century, already associated the wealth of a nation with the abundance of money, but warned that without moral discipline and good governance, money would lose its political and social value. Both converge, in their own way, with Gilson’s central thesis: without ethics, money is dehumanized.

The biting humor of Mark Twain also reminds us of this fragility. He once said that “the man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read” and, adapted to the economic field, one could say: a people who do not understand their money are easily enslaved by it. Twain, in criticizing the illusion of fortunes, anticipates the GAESEMA warning: without philosophical and spiritual awareness, money becomes both myth and social trap.

Why did the wealthy found banks?

Historically, many who accumulated wealth—Venetian merchants, Florentine bankers such as the Medici, or modern industrialists—chose to found banks not only to preserve their patrimony but above all to control the circulation of money and, thus, to govern entire peoples. Direct possession of money was unstable; the bank, however, offered the possibility of transforming private wealth into systemic power.

This movement confirms Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo’s intuition: when money detaches from production and becomes tied to the closed circuit of credit and speculation, it ceases to be a collective product and becomes a tool for the few. From this arise inflation, inequality, and structural corruption.

Integration with the Classics of Economic Thought

The philosophical-economic reflection proposed by Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo, within the scope of the GAESEMA Philosophy, is inscribed in critical dialogue with the great thinkers of economics and sociology who shaped the last centuries.

Karl Polanyi (2000), in The Great Transformation, describes how the market economy became autonomous, separating itself from social life and subordinating man to the impersonal laws of the market. Gilson converges with Polanyi by criticizing the subjugation of African production to Western market models, defending that production must arise from the Producer–Production–Product triangle, placing the human being back at the center of the economic process.

Joseph Schumpeter (1961), when reflecting on capitalism, socialism, and democracy, highlighted the role of creative destruction as a driver of innovation and progress. In Gilson’s perspective, this dynamic is only positive when guided by the ethics of production and respect for local realities; otherwise, creative destruction turns into structural dependence and social exclusion.

Max Weber (2004), in his analysis of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, emphasized the link between culture, religion, and economic development. Gilson revisits this debate by proposing a spirituality of production, in which faith, ethics, and public morality should guide the use of wealth and prevent corruption, reconstructing a productive ethic that dialogues with African reality.

Adam Smith (1996), the father of classical economics, saw in the division of labor and in the “invisible hand” mechanisms of progress and balance. Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo, without rejecting the importance of productivity, questions the illusion that the market alone solves inequalities, proposing a new natural economy that values real production, territorial sovereignty, and the strengthening of informal markets as reserves of resistance.

Eric Hobsbawm (1982), in The Age of Capital, highlighted how the consolidation of capitalism in the 19th century radically transformed societies and empires. Gilson, in revisiting this historical thread, shows how the same process reverberated in colonialism and African dependency, requiring today a project of productive emancipation that restores the dignity of peoples.

Fernand Braudel (1996), in exploring the multiple layers of the world economy, revealed the difference between the local market economy, the material economy of survival, and long-term capitalism. The GAESEMA Philosophy dialogues with this vision by distinguishing between natural production, informal markets, and global flows, defending that sovereignty is only possible when the Producer controls the Product in harmony with Production.

Finally, John Maynard Keynes (1985), in proposing state intervention to correct market failures, opened space for a more regulated capitalism. Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo goes further: he suggests that true intervention should not only regulate but also recreate the model of production in accordance with African reality, replacing external dependencies with a productive system rooted in communities.

Conclusion

If Marx warned of the alienation of labor, Bodin of the discipline of money, Twain of the illusion of fortune, Polanyi of the autonomization of the market, Schumpeter of the risks of creative destruction, Weber of the relation between religion and economy, Smith of the illusion of the invisible hand, Hobsbawm of historical inequality, Braudel of the multiple scales of capitalism, and Keynes of state regulation, Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo gathers and updates them all in a single call: to return money to its character as both individual and collective product, moral mirror of society, and to restore production as the foundation of true human and cosmic sovereignty.

Money is, at the same time, a necessary tool and an existential limit. The GAESEMA Philosophy and the thought of Gilson Guilherme Miguel Ângelo converge in affirming that its function can only be legitimized when linked to ethical production and the common good.

The contemporary challenge is to restore the centrality of the human being in the economic process, recognizing the producer as the original source of value, above the money that represents him. True wealth does not reside in monetary accumulation but in production aligned with cosmic order, ethics, and spirituality. When money replaces the human being as the reference of value, imbalance is established, threatening the stability of societies and their institutions.

Therefore, it is urgent to reflect on the role of money not only as an economic category but as a philosophical and spiritual issue. Only then will it be possible to build fairer, more sustainable societies in harmony with the cosmic order.

References

• Ângelo, Gilson Guilherme Miguel. Filosofia GAESEMA: A Prosperidade ou a Corrupção. (Manuscript, 2025).
• Marx, Karl. Das Kapital: Critique of Political Economy. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2017.
• Marx, Karl; Engels, Friedrich. The Communist Manifesto. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2010.
• Bodin, Jean. Les Six Livres de la République. Paris, 1576.
• Twain, Mark. Following the Equator. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1897.
• Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 2000.
• Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. Rio de Janeiro: Fundo de Cultura, 1961.
• Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2004.
• Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1996.
• Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Capital (1848–1875). Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1982.
• Braudel, Fernand. Material Civilization, Economy and Capitalism: 15th–18th Centuries. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1996.
• Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. São Paulo: Nova Cultural, 1985.

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