Money and Evil

I heard it again the other day and, despite hearing it so many other times, I was still caught amiss. I heard it as plain as day and with so much confidence one would think it had to be the most obvious of truths the world had ever known: "Money is the root of all evil."

What a foolish line that has been perpetuated and enforced by those who know not what they say. There is an excellent rebuttal to such a line in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that parts of it most be quoted:

"Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor- your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money. Is this what you consider evil?"

I'd like to take it a step further and actually entertain the idea of a society without money.

Without a currency of exchange we'd be forced into a system of bartering good and services for other goods and services. This might not seem so drastic until the thought of how quickly we'd decline into a very deep and complete Second Dark Age.

For example, if I knew how to produce insulin, but there were no diabetics, I'd be without any skill and left to hopefully tend a field for a farmer. If I knew how to produce insulin, but the person who needed it was a lumberjack but I did not need wood what would happen? We'd have to come to some agreement that perhaps I needed clothing, and he'd go about and get me some. What would he do until he found some clothes? What would he do next time when I didn't need any more clothing?

What about that farmer who has a field of wheat. What if people in his village didn't want to trade much with him, or even worse, what if he had no need to trade with them? Could he trade enough to get transport to a different village where he might be able to trade more? All of our lives would be taken up with bartering just in order to make ends meet.

Money give us the ability to have a market, a place where a clerk will buy various wares and then hold them until someone else comes looking. The market would be centralized and well known so to attract the largest amount of people - thus ensuring the greatest amount of good and services.

I didn't have time to discuss the foolishness of her statement, but I certain wish people would follow their statements to their logical conclusions. The best quote comes from that book, and sums up people, generosity, greed, and of course money quite well:

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires...
"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants; money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent."

I certainly do believe that if you are a good person, you will now be a well-off good person with more ability to do good; if you are the most mean and nasty person having money will only permit you to be mean and nasty in new and 'exciting' ways. But in the end your motives will forever be your own.