In a round-about way, this article is really talking about how to holistically enrich one's life: there's other forms of Capital beyond Financial Capital, and s

In a round-about way, this article is really talking about how to holistically enrich one's life: there's other forms of Capital beyond Financial Capital, and something out there makes us feel icky when there's too much focus on Financial Capital. Depending on the specific guru you're reading, there's 3/5/8/whatever "Forms of Capital". A 5-framework is something like: - Financial Capital - Material Capital - Social Capital - Intellectual Capital - Human Capital An 8-framework might split something like "Human" into Experiential, Spiritual, Cultural, and Living. Point is, when we adopt the everything-is-transactional lens, we tend to see everything as exchanges of Financial Capital. And we lose sight of our other deep monkey-brain needs, like a sense of community and social belonging. So inviting someone to your personal beachhouse rather than vacation rental doesn't "feel" like bribery because it's closer to trading Social or Experiential Capital rather than Financial Capital. And, for better or worse, "bribes" is (colloquially) closely tied just to Financial Capital. (It becomes nefarious when you exploit this feeling mismatch to, say, trade types of capital with your judicial buddy in ways that look awfully close to a supreme influence on a political case...)