I’ve recently heard the phrase, “money is the root of all evil”, being tossed around. Assuming that is true, that’s a very profound statement. Does that mean that, if there was no such thing as “money” that all evil would dissipate from the earth? If that were the case, what would happen if money suddenly ceased to exist? Would we all suddenly find ourselves living in Utopia? In order to answer that question, we should first delve into the origins of what is money or rather, what is “currency” and where did it come from. Why did we create this thing, which now many feel to be the very bane of our existence? In order to answer that question, I’d like to create a hypothetical scenario that may have existed before there even was a thing such as currency.

Before there was currency, we may have had situations like this: I am a farmer and I grow oranges. My neighbor is a farmer, and they grow wheat. If I needed some wheat, and my neighbor needed some oranges, we would agree on trading each other a certain amount of oranges for a certain amount of wheat. If I needed apples, hopefully my other neighbor was growing some and I could trade some of my oranges for their apples. Problems theoretically arose, however, when I needed wheat or apples, but none of my neighbors needed any oranges. We then suppose that, as a solution, society came up with a basic unit of measured worth. This basic unit of measured and subjectively decided worth came to be known throughout the world as currency, and so a common denominator that could be applied to all goods was established.

However, what if neither my neighbor nor myself have any oranges or wheat? Is it still possible to make a trade? The answer is unequivocally yes. We can do things for each other. Maybe I need someone to fetch water from the river, and my neighbor needs someone to start a fire. But, if my neighbor and I agree to this trade in services, what is being exchanged? The answer is energy. One party agrees to expend such and such amount of our own time and energy devoted to such and such task, and another party agrees to do the same for the other. In essence, energy is what we have traded. This remains true in any country, time period, or other scenario. At its most basic form, currency is energy.

If we revisit the hypothetical pre-currency scenario we just came up with oranges and wheat, we see that this also the case. Essentially, in my actions, I am trading the amount of energy I have put in to growing oranges for someone else’s energy they have put in to growing wheat.

In essence, currency has always existed since the time that human beings were capable of making agreements. When a person gives another person money, assuming that they earned it themselves, that money represents an amount of energy that person has displaced in a particular direction or directions. When a person receives money, that money represents an amount of energy that another person has displaced in a particular direction or directions. Furthermore, because it is currency that is universally applied within one or multiple states, that unit of energy is relative to the state of its pertaining economy as well as the world economy. But, to get back on track and answer our original question, money is not the root of evil in this world.

People are the root of evil. People can make conscious decisions, using money as a means to an end. Money is not that end, money is unit of measurement, and a means to another end. Even those that simply acquire wealth for the sake acquiring wealth are using money to achieve the goal of self-satisfaction. It is best, I believe, that we do not blame the unit of measurement that reveals the flow of energy in this world for the evil that exists in it. Rather, we should focus on the perpetrators of the crimes themselves and their intentions behind their actions.