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Is it okay to say:

There is not anything wrong with having just enough money to satisfy one's needs, whereas too much money leads to corruptness of the society.

or would it be better if I wrote it as:

There is not anything wrong with having just enough money to satisfy your needs, whereas too much money leads to corruptness of the society.

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"One's" is one of the "most correct" methods of expressing general possession.

"Your" is more modern, but is considered by a few to be grammatically incorrect because it specifically refers to "you" when you might want to refer to someone in general, and can have a "slang" feeling to it because of this. But, because of it's extremely frequent use, "your" has generally been adopted as being correct.

Either method is valid, and what you use depends on how you want to come across. "Proper" or "modern".

The same applies to the usages of "one" and "you", with "he or she" and "they" being similar replacements.

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  • I would add, I have found that when I use "you" where I could be using "one", I am more likely to get argument. I suspect there is some psychological priming effect of using "you", where the hearer is more likely to identify with the opposing position or feel criticized (even if the "you" is totally rhetorical). This goes doubly when the piece directly responds to someone in any way. I've found it entirely worth my while to scrub "yous" that can be "ones", if only because I get a better class of flame war.
    – Codeswitcher
    Commented May 31, 2014 at 2:13
  • It's true. That's also why many speech givers get into the practice of using "we" instead of "you".
    – Danegraphics
    Commented May 31, 2014 at 20:27

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