Je suis le premier a parler d`argent ?? bizarre, en effet, on a bien souvent l`habitude de dire que ce sujet est le plus polemique et celui qui attire le plus l`interet des gens. Je trouve que nos reponses et les voters sont assez proches et correspondent aux memes associations d`idees. Certains d`entre vous parlent de sante, ce qui est qssez logique puisqu`il est plus cher d`avoir acces a la medecine aux USA qu`en France, ou l`on a une couverture sociale assez efficace en matiere de sante. Vous insistez egalement beaucoup plus sur le mot ''riche'' : Cela signifie-t`il que les etudiants americians sont plus attires par le fait de devenir riches que nous ? Les etats-unis developpent t`ils plus le reve de la grande richesse que nous ?

C’est vrai que l’argent que ce soit en France ou au Etats-Unis peut être associer soit à une idée négative comme l’inégalité, la corruption ou l’avidité soit une idée de pouvoir et de liberté. Je pense que nous avons tous a peu près le même regard sur l’argent : il en faut pour pouvoir vivre de façon correcte mais l’argent apporte forcement des problème à cause de l’avidité de l’homme. Pourtant on retrouve beaucoup l’idée de riche ce qui m’amène à me demander : le rêve de richesse n’est-il pas très présent dans le rêve américain (contrairement au rêve français souvent moins matérialiste) ?

I think that Charles is right- while money may not (always) be an end unto itself, it is necessary to acheive all other aspects of the American dream. One needs money to finance a house, buy a car, raise a family, go on vacation, etc. Also, if you look at the word assicaitions for "success/reussite" you'll see that having money is often listed first, before happiness... this leads to the theory that one must have money to be happy in America.

On the french side of "success/reussite," "argent" appears but is never first. I see that "travail" and "scolaire" are very prominent. What is the French dream? DO you associate travail and scolaire with argent? i

I noticed that the MIT students associate money with negative things, more than the Polytechnique students. Might that be because there is a lot more corruption and soullessnes in the US?

When I saw the word associations, I was surprised to find that French students knew of Americans like Bill Gates and Alan Greenspan and were able to associate them with money. On the other hand, none of the American responses spoke of any French figureheads that are associated with money. Is this because money is so important in America that those who are associated with it have high international fame? I was also wondering what names the French students can give of people in France associated with money.

I was surprised by the conformity of american students to describe money with words like rich and powerful and wealthy whereas french students didn't seem to have any words that where used by a definate majority.

There were definately similarities with people describing money and stuff but only american students really used evil to describe money.

I agree that Americans seems to place more emphasis on the evil side of money. Something that I found a bit funny was the fact that no one on the American side listed the word "bank", while "banque" was listed 3 times on the French side. I find it amusing that we don't associate money with the place that we store it, while in reality, the bank is clearly the place to go if one is in need of money. It is also interesting that Americans tended to list ways of spending money (for example, vacationing, big house, Mercedes, property), but they did not list very many ways of earning money (examples: work, stocks, investments).

On the French side, someone mentioned "crise de finance en Asie", as well as American names such as "Bill Gates" and "Greenspan". Is this an indication that the French are more concerned with international wealth issues than Americans? Another indication of the French thinking more internationally is the use of "essence", where no one on the American side said anything about "gasoline" or "oil" even though this is a major current problem.

I agree that Americans seems to over-emphasize the evil side of money. I think the French students are more realistic, just because they realise that it takes hard work to earn money and it isn't just there for you to spend. How does French society view rich people? Are they seen as elitist or are they fully integrated?

La plupart des étudiants qui sont intégrés à l'X visent à avoir une carrière pratique, industrielle au lieu de recherche. Donc l'argent est déjà placé à une position importante dans l'esprit de Ecole Polytechnique. Les conférences sur l'économie et l'industrie ont renforcé cette conception.

It's interesting that the students from the Ecole Polytechnique associate money with evil and inequality while the students from MIT associate money with freedom and power in addition to evil. The French side seems to mention words with more negative connotations, even though both still list some physical characteristics of money.

To answer Emmanuel's questions, I think money is a very big part of the American dream. While we have the saying that money doesn't buy happiness, it is definitely true that Americans place a great deal of emphasis on becoming financially sound in their pursuit of that dream. As a result, it is very true that we are drawn to prospect of becoming rich someday.

My question for the students from France: What would you say is the greatest measure of success?

C'est vrai qu'en France on associe souvent la réussite à une réussite professionnelle et familiale plus qu'au fait d'être riche. L’idée d’argent comme fin en soi est très peu présente en France. C’est vrai que de nos jours, la tendance est en train de changer et je pense que les français donnent une plus grande importance à l’argent. Cependant on valorise souvent plus le travail effectué que l’argent gagné. Est-ce que les Américains se focalisent uniquement sur l’argent ou l’idée d’être épanouie dans son travail est quelque chose d’important ?

Pour répondre à Katja, je pense que les personnes très riches en France sont en générale pas très bien vu car considéré comme prétentieuses. Elles se sentent au-dessus de tout le monde. Le problème est qu’une partie de ces personnes ont des racines aristocrates et c’est pour cela qu’ils se sentent un peu supérieur aux autres. Pourtant les "nouveaux riches" sont en générale beaucoup prétentieux et s’intègrent complètement à la population. Existe-t-il la même idée de "nouveaux riches" et de riches par "héritage" ?

It's very interesting to see that French students often associate money with Bank. None of the MIT students mentioned Bank (or the Fed) in our responses. It seems that French students tend to associate money with an institution, governmental or commercial. Whereas, Americans tend to think of money as a concept.

Regarding the concept of "nouveaux riches", it certainly exists in America as well. The "old money" are the Vanderbilts, Hilton, Kenndy etc. "New Money" would be for example, tech companies such as Microsoft, Ebay, Oracle etc. The mentalities for the two groups are quite similar in both countries. The main difference is that there is no such thing as noble descent in America.

Je trouve que la remarque de Maggie est intéressante pour montrer la différence de mentalité entre la France et les Etats-Unis. En France nous n'avons pas le culte de l'argent, et nous ne le voyons alors qu'au travers de ses aspects "pratiques", tels que les banques. Par contre, je me demande si vous ne voyez pas l'argent comme une valeur a part entière, voire même une finalité ou un moyen de juger les individus?

I thought it was interesting that MIT students tended to put down "green", which is the color of our money, but none of the French students really used anything descriptive of their currency. Also, both talked about shopping- something I associate a lot with capitalism, so that was surprising. In addition, none of the Americans talked about poverty but it came up multiple times with the French students- the Americans tended to focus on the rich aspect not the poor aspect.