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Is Money The Root of All Evil: Analysis of The Debate

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Published: Sep 5, 2023

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Introduction, arguments for money as the root of all evil, arguments against money as the root of all evil, the role of individual responsibility.

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Money: Good or Evil? Comparing & Contrasting

1. introduction.

Should wealth be pursued, or is it ultimately detrimental? This is a question that often works in the corners of the minds of humanity. Throughout the ages, people have felt an importance in pursuing monetary wealth, using it as a method to judge successes and failures in life, only achieving a more recent understanding of its importance in happiness. It is ironic, therefore, that so few understand what money is. Almost all of us use it, but very few of us have comprehensive knowledge of the problems involved in the definition of money. Before approaching an analysis of the effects of money, it is a good idea to step back and consider what money is, and what it is not. The definition of money has been a problem for many economists, with no strict definition being agreed upon, only varying descriptions of its differing functions. Common to all definitions is that money is a medium of exchange and a store of value. During the exchange of goods and services, problems arise when we do not have something to offer in return. This can be solved with money, which is then used to purchase other goods and services at a time convenient to the buyer. Money can also be stored, which is a solution to the issue of barter, where many trading goods would be perishable before they could be exchanged. These are the primary functions of money, but money is also used as a standard of deferred payment, transfer of purchasing power, and a unit of account. With this understanding of the functions of money, we must understand that money itself has no value, other than the value we give it. This is similar to comparisons made between other forms of wealth, with Socrates stating that, "If you want to be truly rich, do not store up gold but virtues". Money is just another form of wealth but is often mistaken as being the most important wealth by many. During analyses of the effects of money, it is not uncommon for people to compare money with other wealth, to differentiate between the two, or to measure the effect of exchanging one for the other.

2. The Benefits of Money

Financial situations differ across various regions across the globe. As some are searching for ways to gain more money and accumulate wealth, others are fighting just to survive. No matter the culture or region, everyone could use a little more money, whether to make life easier, make a statement in society, or just to survive. Money continues to be essential in satisfying our needs and wants. The power of currency is evident in its ability to change a person's life and the status level of a nation. In the essay "Money - Good or Evil?", the author delineates the differences between the effects of money on the individual and the effects on the nation. Ultimately, stating that despite some of the negatives money can bring, overall it has a more positive effect in providing a better life for both the individual and the nation. This essay fits in the microeconomic study of individual units, in the explanation of how individual people use money to improve their status in life and reach a level of comfort.

2.1. Facilitating Trade

Before the invention of money, all individuals had to have their needs and wants, and had to have them in roughly the amount that others wanted their goods. Barter created double coincidences of wants which was an impractical and inefficient process. Before the emergence of money, people had to travel the greater or lesser distance according to the extent of their desire to reach someone who had what they wanted and who wanted what they had. This they had to do each time they wanted things. And each time they wanted things, they had to weigh up the relative urgency of their wants because they were constrained by the limits of what they could carry. Money has overcome these problems of barter and the various forms of credit overcome the limitations of money. Post effectively says that barter was an unsatisfactory means of swapping goods and services and that money was invented to overcome the problems of barter. Money makes trading easier and simple because of its common acceptance as a medium of exchange. Money has removed the essential difficulties that arise in a barter system by providing a medium of exchange and a measure of value that is used and understood by all the people. This has taken many forms such as cowrie shells, gold, pieces of eight, and it is now forms of bank deposits and electronic money. Money serves as a medium of exchange by eliminating the need for a double coincidence of wants. This means that people start producing goods not to exchange but with the ultimate hope that they will be able to exchange their goods for money and use that money to then purchase goods that they want. Money is the common denominator which measures the value of all goods and the rate at which they should be exchanged. This makes trade simple because then people can sell their goods for money and then use the money to buy goods that they want at a later time. Money allows a person to divide large sale or purchase into a sequence of steps thus avoiding the problems of barter and the direct exchange of goods. Double coincidence of wants still remains a problem in the multilateral trading through industries and nations, but this is overcome by each nation accepting a common currency for its export sales. Then trading to be conducted is no different from the trading of internal industries, given that the currency's exchange rate is flexible. Money is also a direct attack on the cumbersome barter system. With barter, when A sold goods to B for the sole purpose of then buying better depression from B. With a money system, A could sell goods to anyone knowing that he can buy the bicycle from B at any time. Money makes trading between people less like a one-shot prisoner's dilemma and more a sequence of cooperative exchanges, where each person may need to trust the other.

2.2. Enhancing Standard of Living

As human beings, we have a wide range of desires and various levels of necessities. Wants might be satisfied because they are optional, but needs have a way of getting satisfied. Satisfaction of a need is followed by rising another need still higher in the ladder. Every time the lower order need is satisfied, there is a higher order need waiting to take its place. Once all our basic physical needs have been adequately fulfilled, the next set of needs arises from the desire to have a higher standard of living and the urgency to improve the quality of life. Money has made a rapid inroad in our lifestyle. Today, the world is being designed as a global village. In today's world, the standard of living greatly depends on the amount and quality of money one possesses. Poverty has been constantly referred to as the greatest evil that leads to various other social problems. Poverty can be eradicated in a developing nation only if the entire nation raises its standard of living. This is possible only through rapidly increasing the amount of money the nation as a whole possesses. A good standard of living is a way of life that is satisfactory, healthy, comfortable, and able to achieve various goals. This needs money to achieve all of these above conditions. Money is therefore a main factor in improving the standard of living and achieving higher order needs. Money obtained in bonuses and lots has an immediate effect on improving the standard of living. Money left over after having fulfilled the basic needs can be called disposable income. This money can now be used to start saving or investing for a future cause. Having saved enough money and made investments, this more money for the future can now become a recurring situation. Only a certain amount of money can be used immediately after it has been gained. So a person makes an effort to increase the standard of living in order to have a better quality of life in the future. Money and its quality have a greater effect on a person's standard of living. A person with the best standard of living possible would want the maximum quality of money. This is rare today due to the prevalent rising and falling in the economy. A normal person would want to endeavor to increase or maintain the same standard of living. Only those people with ample money would want to venture upwards in standard of living, thinking it is a worthwhile and achievable task. Without money, there is no way of improving a standard of living. The higher the standard of living, the better quality of life. Money is indeed a means of improving the standard of life, a vast topic with a lot of areas to be discussed. I am certain that many in the days to come will have a quality life writing about this topic.

2.3. Providing Opportunities for Growth

Money itself is neither good nor evil; it is a tool. It can be used to build or to destroy, with the ultimate goals of the user determining the means. It is this idea that serves as the central focus of the Age of the Economist, by Daniel Bell. Throughout the text, Bell outlines how changes in today's world have transformed modern society from a sociologist's point of view. One of Bell's most prevalent ideas is that of human capital. He details how we have moved from an industrial society into a post-industrial society, and that among the key components of this transition has been the increasing importance of human knowledge. It is widely accepted that investment in education is an investment in the future. As a student working one's way through college, there would be a great temptation to eschew those extra hours in the library in favor of more immediate income. Yet, this self-denial of a portion of today's income for an investment in human capital is a clear example of money being used to build rather than to consume. Without the incentives of higher income for the college-educated, the availability of well-paying jobs for the educated.

3. The Drawbacks of Money

In contrast, it is arguable that money has an ancient and regrettably tarnished reputation as a corrupting influence. It has been said that money makes the world go around. It is able to transfix the lives of people, and in most cases, it ends up costing the sanctity of a person's character. In today's society, many are deceived by the impression that they are able to achieve happiness through simple and pure means, usually through success. However, success is often marred by greed, and in the febrile effort to attain more and more material possessions, the propensity of humankind is to fall victim to their own whims. The coercion of greed and materialism, in the quest for success, ultimately veers man away from the path of virtuous expression and personal betterment. The nature of greed is not to be underrated. It is an insatiable desire for avarice, and it drives men to act in mistempered ways to achieve their goals. Material possessions have been the benchmark for success and "keeping up with the Joneses" since time immemorial. Nowadays, self-gratification is often directly attributed to possession of a better car, house, or more stylish clothes. Because of this, it promotes all the wrong notions, and success is no longer defined as the attainment of an acumen to do good. When one considers it, this is the very opposite of what a parent wants for their children, and with children learning by example, the shallow vision of success and happiness shown by parents will ultimately affect the future generation. An example of this can be seen from the corporate father who is too busy to take his son to a cricket match because he is trying to get a big promotion by being subservient to his boss. The Barack Obama adage of "Yes, we can" in his successful presidential campaign aims to lead the world back to the right directions. But unfortunately, the malaise has since far infected the psyche of many, and it would now take something of a divine nature to change their ways.

3.1. Promoting Greed and Materialism

The practice of conspicuous consumption - spending money on costly goods and experiences - is not to satisfy needs. Materialism, as measured by the values placed on the importance of money and possessions, is one of the unhappiest Western. Spendthrifts also tend to be less happy than misers. A plausible psychological interpretation is that those with low self-esteem and morale seek happiness in pleasant products. But materialists are not seeking merely happiness; they are seeking success itself, an anxious state of affairs, which can never be fully achieved. The belief that wealth brings success is part of American Dogma. But there is much evidence that people no longer enjoy their jobs, and work makes them stressed and anxious. If the values for the importance of money and possessions lead people to feel that they are not successful in achieving their aims, then they promote dissatisfaction with life and non-happiness. Money and high levels of consumption deliver at best a small fraction of their promised benefits; therefore devoting one's life to the pursuit of wealth is an error.

3.2. Creating Socioeconomic Inequality

Socioeconomic inequality is the unequal distribution of household or individual income across the various participants in an economy. The issue this poses is that due to this unequal distribution, it means that those with the lowest incomes will fall short in getting the necessary amount of income to maintain their desired style of life. This not only affects the working class, but those who are dependent upon welfare and those who are unemployed. The general impression is that the higher the income, the higher one's quality of life. This is true to a certain extent and brings us to the conclusion that it is fairly impossible to eliminate poverty as there will always be someone who is earning less than someone else. With the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, it makes it harder to move up the social ladder as there is a glass ceiling representing the limitations that the poorer class will face. Areas where there is a greater proportion of elderly residents will suffer as the younger generation will move away to seek employment or higher education. This is because an area where the younger generation stays is likely to receive greater levels of funding for education, leading to increased job prospects and hence reversing the cycle and meaning that the young will stay in that area. This will not only have a negative impact on the standard of life of the elderly, but also make it considerably harder for the young to escape the dependency trap.

3.3. Corrupting Moral Values

Disturbingly, the possession of money can have certain effects on a person, often leading to the deterioration of their moral values. This is particularly prevalent among individuals who are new to a higher social class. In the pursuit or the maintenance of monetary status, individuals often compromise their personal integrity. Behaving in a particular way or endorsing a value that is not in line with what the person truly believes is an all too common scenario. This is an act of dishonesty in itself, and its self-destructive nature is not always immediately visible. Whilst the person may achieve the social status they are looking for, they have done so at the cost of personal pride, as it was not achieved through being the person they really are. The person will often feel internal guilt as a consequence of their actions and many around them will commonly feel that they 'sold out'. Not only does it compromise individual integrity, the quest for a higher social class can often result in the alienation of an individual from their own culture. In a diverse society, people from all different cultural and ethnic backgrounds have come to identify themselves with the prevailing socioeconomic status of their peers. In order to 'keep up with the Joneses', people will often forsake their own culture to adopt the culture of their perceived higher social class. This lack of cultural identity can serve to alienate a person from their own community and even their own friends and family, as they feel they have less in common with these people due to their material differences. An extreme example of this can be seen in Aboriginal communities in Australia, where compensation money has led to individuals receiving large sums at a young age and becoming alienated from their community in an attempt to live the 'white' lifestyle.

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Philosophy of Money and Finance

Finance and philosophy may seem to be worlds apart. But they share at least one common ancestor: Thales of Miletus. Thales is typically regarded as the first philosopher, but he was also a financial innovator. He appears to have been what we would now call an option trader. He predicted that next year’s olive harvest would be good, and therefore paid a small amount of money to the owners of olive presses for the right to the next year’s use. When the harvest turned out to be as good as predicted, Thales earned a sizable amount of money by renting out the presses (Aristotle, Politics , 1259a).

Obviously, a lot has changed since Thales’ times, both in finance and in our ethical and political attitudes towards finance. Coins have largely been replaced by either paper or electronic money, and we have built a large infrastructure to facilitate transactions of money and other financial assets—with elements including commercial banks, central banks, insurance companies, stock exchanges, and investment funds. This institutional multiplicity is due to concerted efforts of both private and public agents, as well as innovations in financial economics and in the financial industry (Shiller 2012).

Our ethical and political sensitivities have also changed in several respects. It seems fair to say that most traditional ethicists held a very negative attitude towards financial activities. Think, for example, of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple from moneylenders, and the widespread condemnation of money as “the root of all evil”. Attitudes in this regard seem to have softened over time. However, the moral debate continues to recur, especially in connection with large scandals and crises within finance, the largest such crisis in recent memory of course being the global financial crisis of 2008.

This article describes what philosophical analysis can say about money and finance. It is divided into five parts that respectively concern (1) what money and finance really are (metaphysics), (2) how knowledge about financial matters is or should be formed (epistemology), (3) the merits and challenges of financial economics (philosophy of science), (4) the many ethical issues related to money and finance (ethics), and (5) the relationship between finance and politics (political philosophy).

1.1 What is Money?

1.2 what is finance, 2. epistemology, 3. philosophy of science, 4.1.1 the love of money, 4.1.2 usury and interest, 4.1.3 speculation and gambling, 4.2.1 deception and fraud, 4.2.2 avoiding conflicts of interest, 4.2.3 insider trading, 4.3.1 systemic risk and financial crises, 4.3.2 microfinance, 4.3.3 socially responsible investment, 5.1 financialization and democracy, 5.2 finance, money, and domestic justice, 5.3 finance and global justice, other internet resources, related entries, 1. metaphysics.

Money is so ever-present in modern life that we tend to take its existence and nature for granted. But do we know what money actually is? Two competing theories present fundamentally different ontologies of money.

The commodity theory of money: A classic theory, which goes back all the way to Aristotle ( Politics , 1255b–1256b), holds that money is a kind of commodity that fulfills three functions: it serves as (i) a medium of exchange, (ii) a unit of account, and (iii) a store of value. Imagine a society that lacks money, and in which people have to barter goods with each other. Barter only works when there is a double coincidence of wants ; that is, when A wants what B has and B wants what A has. But since such coincidences are likely to be uncommon, a barter economy seems both cumbersome and inefficient (Smith 1776, Menger 1892). At some point, people will realize that they can trade more easily if they use some intermediate good—money. This intermediate good should ideally be easy to handle, store and transport (function i). It should be easy to measure and divide to facilitate calculations (function ii). And it should be difficult to destroy so that it lasts over time (function iii).

Monetary history may be viewed as a process of improvement with regard to these functions of money (Ferguson 2008, Weatherford 1997). For example, some early societies used certain basic necessities as money, such as cattle or grain. Other societies settled on commodities that were easier to handle and to tally but with more indirect value, such as clamshells and precious metals. The archetypical form of money throughout history are gold or silver coins—therefore the commodity theory is sometimes called metallism (Knapp 1924, Schumpeter 1954). Coinage is an improvement on bullion in that both quantity and purity are guaranteed by some third party, typically the government. Finally, paper money can be viewed as a simplification of the trade in coins. For example, a bank note issued by the Bank of England in the 1700s was a promise to pay the bearer a certain pound weight of sterling silver (hence the origin of the name of the British currency as “pounds sterling”).

The commodity theory of money was defended by many classical economists and can still be found in most economics textbooks (Mankiw 2009, Parkin 2011). This latter fact is curious since it has provoked serious and sustained critique. An obvious flaw is that it has difficulties in explaining inflation, the decreasing value of money over time (Innes 1913, Keynes 1936). It has also been challenged on the grounds that it is historically inaccurate. For example, recent anthropological studies question the idea that early societies went from a barter economy to money; instead money seems to have arisen to keep track of pre-existing credit relationships (Graeber 2011, Martin 2013, Douglas 2016).

The credit theory of money: According to the main rival theory, coins and notes are merely tokens of something more abstract: money is a social construction rather than a physical commodity. The abstract entity in question is a credit relationship; that is, a promise from someone to grant (or repay) a favor (product or service) to the holder of the token (Macleod 1889, Innes 1914, Ingham 2004). In order to function as money, two further features are crucial: that (i) the promise is sufficiently credible, that is, the issuer is “creditworthy”; and (ii) the credit is transferable, that is, also others will accept it as payment for trade.

It is commonly thought that the most creditworthy issuer of money is the state. This thought provides an alternative explanation of the predominance of coins and notes whose value is guaranteed by states. But note that this theory also can explain so-called fiat money, which is money that is underwritten by the state but not redeemable in any commodity like gold or silver. Fiat money has been the dominant kind of money globally since 1971, when the United States terminated the convertibility of dollars to gold. The view that only states can issue money is called chartalism , or the state theory of money (Knapp 1924). However, in order to properly understand the current monetary system, it is important to distinguish between states’ issuing versus underwriting money. Most credit money in modern economies is actually issued by commercial banks through their lending operations, and the role of the state is only to guarantee the convertibility of bank deposits into cash (Pettifor 2014).

Criticisms of the credit theory tend to be normative and focus on the risk of overexpansion of money, that is, that states (and banks) can overuse their “printing presses” which may lead to unsustainable debt levels, excessive inflation, financial instability and economic crises. These are sometimes seen as arguments for a return to the gold standard (Rothbard 1983, Schlichter 2014). However, others argue that the realization that money is socially constructed is the best starting point for developing a more sustainable and equitable monetary regime (Graeber 2010, Pettifor 2014). We will return to this political debate below ( section 5.2 ).

The social ontology of money: But exactly how does the “social construction” of money work? This question invokes the more general philosophical issue of social ontology, with regard to which money is often used as a prime example. In an early philosophical-sociological account, Georg Simmel (1900) describes money as an institution that is a crucial precondition for modernity because it allows putting a value on things and simplifies transactions; he also criticizes the way in which money thereby replaces other forms of valuation (see also section 4.1 ).

In the more recent debate, one can distinguish between two main philosophical camps. An influential account of social ontology holds that money is the sort of social institution whose existence depends on “collective intentionality”: beliefs and attitudes that are shared in a community (Searle 1995, 2010). The process starts with someone’s simple and unilateral declaration that something is money, which is a performative speech act. When other people recognize or accept the declaration it becomes a standing social rule. Thus, money is said to depend on our subjective attitudes but is not located (solely) in our minds (see also Lawson 2016, Brynjarsdóttir 2018, Passinsky 2020, Vooys & Dick 2021).

An alternative account holds that the creation of money need not be intentional or declarative in the above sense. Instead money comes about as a solution to a social problem (the double coincidence of wants) – and it is maintained simply because it is functional or beneficial to us (Guala 2016, Hindriks & Guala 2021). Thus what makes something money is not the official declarations of some authority, but rather that it works (functions) as money in a given society (see also Smit et al. 2011; 2016). (For more discussion see the special issue by Hindriks & Sandberg 2020, as well as the entries on social ontology and social institutions ).

One may view “finance” more generally (that is, the financial sector or system) as an extension of the monetary system. It is typically said that the financial sector has two main functions: (1) to maintain an effective payments system; and (2) to facilitate an efficient use of money. The latter function can be broken down further into two parts. First, to bring together those with excess money (savers, investors) and those without it (borrowers, enterprises), which is typically done through financial intermediation (the inner workings of banks) or financial markets (such as stock or bond markets). Second, to create opportunities for market participants to buy and sell money, which is typically done through the invention of financial products, or “assets”, with features distinguished by different levels of risk, return, and maturation.

The modern financial system can thus be seen as an infrastructure built to facilitate transactions of money and other financial assets, as noted at the outset. It is important to note that it contains both private elements (such as commercial banks, insurance companies, and investment funds) and public elements (such as central banks and regulatory authorities). “Finance” can also refer to the systematic study of this system; most often to the field of financial economics (see section 3 ).

Financial assets: Of interest from an ontological viewpoint is that modern finance consists of several other “asset types” besides money; central examples include credit arrangements (bank accounts, bonds), equity (shares or stocks), derivatives (futures, options, swaps, etc.) and funds (trusts). What are the defining characteristics of financial assets?

The typical distinction here is between financial and “real” assets, such as buildings and machines (Fabozzi 2002), because financial assets are less tangible or concrete. Just like money, they can be viewed as a social construction. Financial assets are often derived from or at least involve underlying “real” assets—as, for example, in the relation between owning a house and investing in a housing company. However, financial transactions are different from ordinary market trades in that the underlying assets seldom change hands, instead one exchanges abstract contracts or promises of future transactions. In this sense, one may view the financial market as the “meta-level” of the economy, since it involves indirect trade or speculation on the success of other parts of the economy.

More distinctly, financial assets are defined as promises of future money payments (Mishkin 2016, Pilbeam 2010). If the credit theory of money is correct, they can be regarded as meta-promises: promises on promises. The level of abstraction can sometimes become enormous: For example, a “synthetic collateralized debt obligation” (or “synthetic CDO”), a form of derivative common before the financial crisis, is a promise from person A (the seller) to person B (the buyer) that some persons C to I (speculators) will pay an amount of money depending on the losses incurred by person J (the holder of an underlying derivative), which typically depend on certain portions (so-called tranches) of the cash flow from persons K to Q (mortgage borrowers) originally promised to persons R to X (mortgage lenders) but then sold to person Y (the originator of the underlying derivative). The function of a synthetic CDO is mainly to spread financial risks more thinly between different speculators.

Intrinsic value: Perhaps the most important characteristic of financial assets is that their price can vary enormously with the attitudes of investors. Put simply, there are two main factors that determine the price of a financial asset: (i) the credibility or strength of the underlying promise (which will depend on the future cash flows generated by the asset); and (ii) its transferability or popularity within the market, that is, how many other investors are interested in buying the asset. In the process known as “price discovery”, investors assess these factors based on the information available to them, and then make bids to buy or sell the asset, which in turn sets its price on the market (Mishkin 2016, Pilbeam 2010).

A philosophically interesting question is whether there is such a thing as an “intrinsic” value of financial assets, as is often assumed in discussions about financial crises. For example, a common definition of an “asset bubble” is that this is a situation that occurs when certain assets trade at a price that strongly exceed their intrinsic value—which is dangerous since the bubble can burst and cause an economic shock (Kindleberger 1978, Minsky 1986, Reinhart & Rogoff 2009). But what is the intrinsic value of an asset? The rational answer seems to be that this depends only on the discounted value of the underlying future cash flow—in other words, on (i) and not (ii) above. However, someone still has to assess these factors to compute a price, and this assessment inevitably includes subjective elements. As just noted, it is assumed that different investors have different valuations of financial assets, which is why they can engage in trades on the market in the first place.

A further complication here is that (i) may actually be influenced by (ii). The fundamentals may be influenced by investors’ perceptions of them, which is a phenomenon known as “reflexivity” (Soros 1987, 2008). For example, a company whose shares are popular among investors will often find it easier to borrow more money and thereby to expand its cash flow, in turn making it even more popular among investors. Conversely, when the company’s profits start to fall it may lose popularity among investors, thereby making its loans more expensive and its profits even lower. This phenomenon amplifies the risks posed by financial bubbles (Keynes 1936).

Given the abstractness and complexity of financial assets and relations, as outlined above, it is easy to see the epistemic challenges they raise. For example, what is a proper basis for forming justified beliefs about matters of money and finance?

A central concept here is that of risk. Since financial assets are essentially promises of future money payments, a main challenge for financial agents is to develop rational expectations or hypotheses about relevant future outcomes. The two main factors in this regard are (1) expected return on the asset, which is typically calculated as the value of all possible outcomes weighted by their probability of occurrence, and (2) financial risk, which is typically calculated as the level of variation in these returns. The concept of financial risk is especially interesting from a philosophical viewpoint since it represents the financial industry’s response to epistemic uncertainty. It is often argued that the financial system is designed exactly to address or minimize financial risks—for example, financial intermediation and markets allow investors to spread their money over several assets with differing risk profiles (Pilbeam 2010, Shiller 2012). However, many authors have been critical of mainstream operationalizations of risk which tend to focus exclusively on historical price volatility and thereby downplay the risk of large-scale financial crises (Lanchester 2010, Thamotheram & Ward 2014).

This point leads us further to questions about the normativity of belief and knowledge. Research on such topics as the ethics of belief and virtue epistemology considers questions about the responsibilities that subjects have in epistemic matters. These include epistemic duties concerning the acquisition, storage, and transmission of information; the evaluation of evidence; and the revision or rejection of belief (see also ethics of belief ). In line with a reappraisal of virtue theory in business ethics, it is in particular virtue epistemology that has attracted attention from scholars working on finance. For example, while most commentators have focused on the moral failings that led to the financial crisis of 2008, a growing literature examines epistemic failures.

Epistemic failings in finance can be detected both at the level of individuals and collectives (de Bruin 2015). Organizations may develop corporate epistemic virtue along three dimensions: through matching epistemic virtues to particular functions (e.g., diversity at the board level); through providing adequate organizational support for the exercise of epistemic virtue (e.g., knowledge management techniques); and by adopting organizational remedies against epistemic vice (e.g., rotation policies). Using this three-pronged approach helps to interpret such epistemic failings as the failure of financial due diligence to spot Bernard Madoff’s notorious Ponzi scheme (uncovered in the midst of the financial crisis) (de Bruin 2014a, 2015).

Epistemic virtue is not only relevant for financial agents themselves, but also for other institutions in the financial system. An important example concerns accounting (auditing) firms. Accounting firms investigate businesses in order to make sure that their accounts (annual reports) offer an accurate reflection of the financial situation. While the primary intended beneficiaries of these auditing services are shareholders (and the public at large), accountants are paid by the firms they audit. This remuneration system is often said to lead to conflicts of interest. While accounting ethics is primarily concerned with codes of ethics and other management tools to minimize these conflicts of interests, an epistemological perspective may help to show that the business-auditor relationship should be seen as involving a joint epistemic agent in which the business provides evidence, and the auditor epistemic justification (de Bruin 2013). We will return to issues concerning conflicts of interest below (in section 4.2 ).

Epistemic virtue is also important for an effective governance or regulation of financial activities. For example, a salient epistemic failing that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis seems to be the way that Credit Rating Agencies rated mortgage-backed securities and other structured finance instruments, and with related failures of financial due diligence, and faulty risk management (Warenski 2008). Credit Rating Agencies provide estimates of credit risk of bonds that institutional investors are legally bound to use in their investment decisions. This may, however, effectively amount to an institutional setup in which investors are forced by law partly to outsource their risk management, which fails to foster epistemic virtue (Booth & de Bruin 2021, de Bruin 2017). Beyond this, epistemic failures can also occur among regulators themselves, as well as among relevant policy makers (see further in section 5.1 ).

A related line of work attests to the relevance of epistemic injustice to finance. Taking Fricker’s (2009) work as a point of departure, de Bruin (2021) examines testimonial injustice in financial services, whereas Mussell (2021) focuses on the harms and wrongs of testimonial injustice as they occur in the relationship between trustees and fiduciaries.

Compared to financial practitioners, one could think that financial economists should be at an epistemic advantage in matters of money and finance. Financial economics is a fairly young but well established discipline in the social sciences that seeks to understand, explain, and predict activities within financial markets. However, a few months after the crash in 2008, Queen Elizabeth II famously asked a room full of financial economists in London why they had not predicted the crisis (Egidi 2014). The Queen’s question should be an excellent starting point for an inquiry into the philosophy of science of financial economics. Yet only a few philosophers of science have considered finance specifically (Vergara Fernández & de Bruin 2021). [ 1 ]

Some important topics in financial economics have received partial attention, including the Modigliani-Miller capital structure irrelevance theorem (Hindriks 2008), the efficient market hypothesis (Collier 2011), the Black-Scholes option pricing model (Weatherall 2017), portfolio theory (Walsh 2015), financial equilibrium models (Farmer & Geanakoplos 2009), the concept of money (Mäki 1997), and behavioral finance (Brav, Heaton, & Rosenberg 2004), even though most of the debate still occurs among economists interested in methodology rather than among philosophers. A host of topics remain to be investigated, however: the concept of Value at Risk (VaR) (and more broadly the concept of financial risk), the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), the Gaussian copula, random walks, financial derivatives, event studies, forecasting (and big data), volatility, animal spirits, cost of capital, the various financial ratios, the concept of insolvency, and neurofinance, all stand in need of more sustained attention from philosophers.

Most existing work on finance in philosophy of science is concerned with models and modelling (see also models in science and philosophy of economics ). It seems intuitive to view financial markets as extremely complex systems: with so many different factors at play, predicting the price of securities (shares, bonds, etc.) seems almost impossible. Yet mainstream financial economics is firmly committed to the idea that market behavior should be understood as ultimately resulting from interactions of agents maximizing their expected utility. This is a direct application of the so-called neoclassical school of economics that was developed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While this school continues to dominate textbooks in the field, there is a growing scholarly trend that seeks to criticize, complement or even replace some of its main assumptions. We can see how the problems play out in both corporate finance and asset pricing theory.

Corporate finance concerns the financing of firms. One question concerns a firm’s capital structure: should a firm obtain funding through equity (that is, from shareholders expecting dividends) or through debt (that is, from bondholders who lend money to the firm and have a contractual right to receive interest on the loans), or through a combination of the two. A key result in corporate finance is the Modigliani-Miller theorem, which says that a firm’s capital structure is irrelevant to its market value (Modigliani & Miller 1958). This theorem makes a number of highly unrealistic assumptions, among them the assumption that markets are efficient, and that there are no taxes. Alongside many other results in economics, it may therefore be considered as useless for predictive purposes; or even as dangerous, once used for such purposes nonetheless (Egidi 2014). In a detailed study of the Modigliani-Miller theorem, Hindriks (2008) has argued, however, that the value of highly idealized models in economics may lie in their providing counterfactual insights, just as in physics. Galileo’s law of free fall tells us what happens in a vacuum. Despite the fact that vacuum is rare in reality, the law is not uninformative, because it allows us to associate observed phenomena to the extent to which an unrealistic assumption must be relaxed. Similarly, if one of the assumptions that the Modigliani-Miller theorem makes is the absence of taxes, the observed relevance of capital structure may well have to be explained as resulting from particular tax regimes. The explanation obtained by relaxing unrealistic assumptions is called “explanation by concretization” (Hindriks 2008).

Explanation by concretization works if models and reality share at least a few concrete features. This is arguably the case for many extant models in finance, including models of bubbles and crises that are immediately relevant to explaining the 2008 crisis (Abreu & Brunnermeier 2003). A fairly recent development called “econophysics” may, however, be an exception. Econophysics uses physics methods to model financial markets (see Rickles 2007 for an overview). Where traditional models of crises include individual investors with beliefs and desires modelled by probability distributions and utility functions, econophysics models capture crises the way physicists model transitions of matter from fluid to solid state (Kuhlmann 2014).

Next, consider asset pricing theory. Ever since Bachelier’s groundbreaking mathematical treatment of asset pricing, financial economists have struggled to find the best way to determine the price developments of securities such as shares, bonds, and derivative instruments such as options. The mathematics of financial returns has received some attention in the literature (de Bruin & Walter 2017; Ippoliti & Chen 2017). Most models assume that returns follow Gaussian random walks, that is, stochastic processes in discrete time with independent and identically distributed increments. Empirical studies show, however, that returns are more peaked than Gaussian distributions, and that they have “fat tails”. This means that extreme events such as financial crises are far less improbable than the models assume. An exception with regards to these assumptions is Benoît Mandelbrot’s (1963) well-known contribution to financial mathematics, and work in this direction is gaining traction in mathematical finance.

A third aspect of financial models concerns the way they incorporate uncertainty (Bertolotti & Magnani 2017). Some of the problems of contemporary financial (and macroeconomic) models are due to the way they model uncertainty as risk, as outlined above (Frydman & Goldberg 2013). Both neo-classical models and behavioral economics capture uncertainty as probabilistic uncertainty, consequently ignoring Knightian uncertainty (Knight 1921 see also decision theory ). The philosophy of science literature that pertains to financial economics is, however, still fairly small (Vergara Fernández & de Bruin 2021).

Having considered the epistemic and scientific challenges of finance, we now turn to the broad range of compelling ethical challenges related to money and finance. The present part is divided into three sections, discussing 1) the claim that financial activities are always morally suspect, 2) various issues of fairness that can arise in financial markets, and 3) discussions about the social responsibilities of financial agents.

4.1 Money as the Root of All Evil?

Throughout cultural history, activities that involve money or finance have been subject to intense moral scrutiny and ethical debate. It seems fair to say that most traditional ethicists held a very negative attitude towards such activities. We will here discuss three very sweeping criticisms, respectively directed at the love of money (the profit motive), usury (lending at interest), and speculation (gambling in finance).

At the heart of many sweeping criticisms of money and finance lies the question of motive. For instance, the full Biblical quotation says that “the love of money is the root of all [kinds of] evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). To have a “love of money”, or (in less moralistic words) a profit motive, means to seek money for its own sake. It has been the subject of much moral criticism throughout history and continues to be controversial in popular morality.

There are three main variations of the criticism. A first variation says that there is something unnatural about the profit motive itself. For example, Aristotle argued that we should treat objects in ways that are befitting to their fundamental nature, and since money is not meant to be a good in itself but only a medium of exchange (see section 1.1 ), he concluded that it is unnatural to desire money as an end in itself ( Politics , 1252a–1260b). A similar thought is picked up by Marx, who argues that capitalism replaces the natural economic cycle of C–M–C (commodity exchanged for money exchanged for commodity) with M–C–M (money exchanged for commodity exchanged for money). Thus the endless accumulation of money becomes the sole goal of the capitalist, which Marx describes as a form of “fetishism” (Marx 1867, volume I).

A second variation of the criticism concerns the character, or more precisely the vice, that the profit motive is thought to exemplify (see also virtue ethics ). To have a love for money is typically associated with selfishness and greed, i.e., a desire to have as much as possible for oneself and/or more than one really needs (McCarty 1988, Walsh & Lynch 2008). Another association is the loss of moral scruples so that one is ready to do anything for money. The financial industry is often held out as the worst in this regard, especially because of its high levels of compensation. Allegations of greed soared after the 2008 crisis, when financial executives continued to receive million-dollar bonuses while many ordinary workers lost their jobs (Piketty 2014, McCall 2010, Andersson & Sandberg 2019).

A third variation of the criticism says that the profit motive signals the absence of more appropriate motives. Kant argued that actions only have moral worth if they are performed for moral reasons, or, more specifically, for the sake of duty. Thus it is not enough that we do what is right, we must also do it because it is right (Kant 1785). Another relevant Kantian principle is that we never should treat others merely as means for our own ends, but always also as ends in themselves (see also Kant’s moral philosophy ). Both of these principles seem to contrast with the profit motive which therefore is rendered morally problematic (Bowie 1999, Maitland 2002). It should come as no surprise that Kant was a strong critic of several examples of “commodification” and other market excesses (see also markets ).

There are two main lines of defensive argumentation. The most influential is Adam Smith’s well-known argument about the positive side-effects of a self-interested pursuit of profits: although the baker and brewer only aim at their own respective good, Smith suggested, they are “led by an invisible hand” to at the same time promote the public good (Smith 1776, see also Mandeville 1732). This argument is typically viewed as a consequentialist vindication of the profit motive (see also consequentialism ): positive societal effects can morally outweigh the possible shortcomings in individual virtue (Flew 1976).

A second argument is more direct and holds that the profit motive can exemplify a positive virtue. For example, there is the well-known Protestant work ethic that emphasizes the positive nature of hard work, discipline and frugality (Long 1972, Wesley 1771). The profit motive can, on this view, be associated with virtues such as ambition, industry, and discipline (see also Brennan 2021). According to Max Weber (1905), the Protestant work ethic played an important role in the development of capitalism. But it is not clear whether any of these arguments can justify an exclusive focus on profits, of course, or rather give permission to also focus on profits under certain circumstances.

If having a love of money seems morally suspect, then the practice of making money on money—for instance, lending money at interest—could seem even worse. This is another sweeping criticism directed at finance that can be found among the traditional ethicists. Societies in both Ancient and Medieval times typically condemned or banned the practice of “usury”, which originally meant all charging of interest on loans. As the practice started to become socially acceptable, usury came to mean the charging of excessive rates of interest. However, modern Islam still contains a general prohibition against interest, and many countries still have at least partial usury laws, most often setting an upper limit on interest rates.

What could be wrong with lending at interest? Some of the more obscure arguments concern the nature of money (again): Aristotle argued that there is something unnatural with “money begetting money”. While he allowed that money is a useful means for facilitating commercial exchange, Aristotle thought that it has no productive use in itself and so receiving interest over and above the borrowed amount is unnatural and wrong ( Politics , 1258b). A related argument can be found in Aquinas, who argued that money is a good that is consumed on use. Although a lender can legitimately demand repayment of an amount equivalent to the loan, it is illegitimate to demand payment for the use of the borrowed amount and so adding interest is unnatural and wrong ( Summa Theologica , II–II, Q78).

Some more promising arguments concern justice and inequality. For example, as early as Plato we see the expression of the worry that allowing interest may lead to societal instability ( The Republic , II). It may be noted that the biblical condemnations of usury most straightforwardly prohibit interest-taking from the poor. One idea here is that we have a duty of charity to the poor and charging interest is incompatible with this duty. Another idea is that the problem lies in the outcome of interest payments: Loans are typically extended by someone who is richer (someone with capital) to someone who is poorer (someone without it) and so asking for additional interest may increase the inequitable distribution of wealth (Sandberg 2012, Visser & MacIntosh 1998). A third idea, which is prominent in the protestant tradition, is that lending often involves opportunism or exploitation in the sense of offering bad deals to poor people who have no other options (Graafland 2010).

The Islamic condemnation of interest, or riba , adds an additional, third line of argument which holds that interest is essentially unearned or undeserved income: Since the lender neither partakes in the actual productive use of the money lent, nor exposes him- or herself to commercial risk, the lender cannot legitimately share in the gains produced by the loan (Ayub 2007, Birnie 1952, Thomas 2006). Based on this argument, contemporary Islamic banks insist that lenders and borrowers must form a business partnership in order for fees on loans to be morally legitimate (Ayub 2007, Warde 2010). Economists have over the years given several retorts to this argument. Some economists stress that lending also involves risk (e.g., that the borrower defaults and is unable to repay); others stress the so-called opportunity costs of lending (i.e., that the money could have been used more profitably elsewhere); and yet again others stress the simple time-preference of individuals (i.e., that we value present more than future consumption, and therefore the lender deserves compensation for postponing consumption).

The gradual abandonment of the medieval usury laws in the West is typically attributed to a growing acknowledgment of the great potential for economic growth unleashed by easy access to capital. One could perhaps say that history itself disproved Aristotle: money indeed proved to have a productive use. In a short text from 1787, Bentham famously poked fun at many of the classical anti-usury arguments and defended the practice of charging interest from a utilitarian standpoint (Bentham 1787). However, this does not mean that worries about the ethics of charging interest, and allegations of usury, have disappeared entirely in society. As noted above, usury today means charging interest rates that seem excessive or exorbitant. For instance, many people are outraged by the rates charged on modern payday loans, or the way in which rich countries exact interest on their loans from poor countries (Baradaran 2015, Graeber 2011, Herzog 2017a). These intuitions have clear affinities with the justice-based arguments outlined above.

A sweeping criticism of a more contemporary nature concerns the supposed moral defects of speculation. This criticism tends to be directed towards financial activities that go beyond mere lending. Critics of the capitalist system often liken the stock market to a casino and investors to gamblers or punters (Sinn 2010, Strange 1986). More moderate critics insist on a strict distinction between investors or shareholders, on the one hand, and speculators or gamblers, on the other (Bogle 2012, Sorell & Hendry 1994). In any case, the underlying assumption is that the similarities between modern financial activities and gambling are morally troublesome.

On some interpretations, these concerns are similar to those raised above. For example, some argue that speculators are driven by the profit motive whereas investors have a genuine concern for the underlying business enterprise (Hendry 2013). Others see speculation as “parasitic”, that is, to be without productive use, and solely dependent on luck (Borna & Lowry 1987, Ryan 1902). This latter argument is similar to the complaint about undeserved income raised in particular by Islamic scholars (Ayub 2007, Warde 2010).

A more distinct interpretation holds that speculation typically includes very high levels of risk-taking (Borna & Lowry 1987). This is morally problematic when the risks not only affect the gambler him or herself but also society as a whole. A root cause of the financial crisis of 2008 was widespread speculation on very risky derivatives such as “synthetic collateralized debt obligations” (see section 1.2 ). When the value of such derivatives fell dramatically, the financial system as a whole came to the brink of collapse. We will return to this issue below (in section 4.3.1 ). In this regard, the question of risk imposition becomes important too (Moggia 2021).

A related interpretation concerns the supposed short-sightedness of speculation. It is often argued that financial agents and markets are “myopic” in the sense that they care only about profits in the very near term, e.g., the next quarter (Dallas 2012). Modern disclosure requirements force companies to publish quarterly earnings reports. The myopia of finance is typically blamed for negative effects such as market volatility, the continuous occurrence of manias and crashes, inadequate investment in social welfare, and the general shortsightedness of the economy (e.g., Lacke 1996).

Defenders of speculation argue that it can serve a number of positive ends. To the extent that all financial activities are speculative in some sense, of course, the ends coincide with the function of finance more generally: to channel funds to the individuals or companies who can use them in the most productive ways. But even speculation in the narrower sense—of high-risk, short-term bets—can have a positive role to play: It can be used to “hedge” or off-set the risks of more long-term investments, and it contributes to sustaining “market liquidity” (that is, as a means for providing counterparties to trade with at any given point of time) which is important for an efficient pricing mechanism (Angel & McCabe 2009, Koslowski 2009).

4.2 Fairness in Financial Markets

Let us now assume that the existence of financial markets is at least in general terms ethically acceptable, so that we can turn to discuss some of the issues involved in making them fair and just for all parties involve. We will focus on three such issues: deception and fraud (honesty), conflicts of interest (care for customers), and insider trading (fair play).

Some of the best-known ethical scandals in finance are cases of deception or fraud. Enron, a huge US corporation, went bankrupt after it was discovered that its top managers had “cooked the books”, i.e., engaged in fraudulent accounting practices, keeping huge debts off the company’s balance sheet in an effort to make it look more profitable (McLean & Elkind 2003). Other scandals in the industry have involved deceptive marketing practices, hidden fees or costs, undisclosed or misrepresented financial risks, and outright Ponzi schemes (see section 2 ).

While these examples seem obvious, on further examination it is not easy to give an exact definition of financial deception or fraud. The most straightforward case seems to be deliberately misrepresenting or lying about financial facts. However, this assumes that there is such a thing as a financial fact, i.e., a correct way of representing a financial value or transaction. In light of the socially constructed nature of money and finance (see section 1 ), this may not always be clear. Less straightforward cases include simply concealing or omitting financial information, or refraining from obtaining the information in the first place.

A philosophical conception of fraud, inspired by Kant, defines it as denying to the weaker party in a financial transaction (such as a consumer or investor) information that is necessary to make a rational (or autonomous) decision (Boatright 2014, Duska & Clarke 2002). Many countries require that the seller of a financial product (such a company issuing shares) must disclose all information that is “material” to the product. It is an interesting question whether this suggestion, especially the conception of rationality involved, should include or rule out a consideration of the ethical nature of the product (such as the ethical nature of the company’s operations) (Lydenberg 2014). Furthermore, there may be information that is legitimately excluded by other considerations, such as the privacy of individuals or companies commonly protected by “bank secrecy” laws.

But is access to adequate information enough? A complication here is that the weaker party, especially ordinary consumers, may have trouble processing the information sufficiently well to identify cases of fraud. This is a structural problem in finance that has no easy fix, because financial products are often abstract, complex, and difficult to price. Therefore, full autonomy of agents may not only require access to adequate information, but also access to sufficient know how, processing ability and resources to analyze the information (Boatright 2014). One solution is to require that the financial services industry promotes transparent communication in which they track the understanding of ordinary consumers (de Bruin 2014b, Endörfer & De Bruin 2019, Shiller 2012).

Due to the problems just noted, the majority of ordinary consumers refrain from engaging in financial markets on their own and instead rely on the services of financial intermediaries, such as banks, investment funds, and insurance companies. But this opens up new ethical problems that are due to the conflicts of interest inherent in financial intermediation. Simply put, the managers or employees of intermediaries have ample opportunity, and often also incentives, to misuse their customers’ money and trust.

Although it is once again difficult to give an exact definition, the literature is full of examples of such misuse—including so-called churning (trading excessively to generate high fees), stuffing (selling the bank’s undesired assets to a client), front-running (buying an asset for the bank first and then reselling it to the client at a higher price) and tailgating (mimicking a client’s trade to piggyback on his/her information) (Dilworth 1994; Heacock, Hill, & Anderson 1987). Interestingly, some argue that the whole industry of actively managed investment funds may be seen as a form of fraud. According to economic theory, namely, it is impossible to beat the average returns of the market for any given level of financial risk, at least in the long term. Therefore, funds who claim that they can do this for a fee are basically cheating their clients (cf. Hendry 2013, Kay 2015).

A legal doctrine that aims to protect clients is so-called fiduciary duty, which imposes obligations on fiduciaries (those entrusted with others’ money) to act in the sole interest of beneficiaries (those who own the money). The interests referred to are typically taken to be financial interests, so the obligation of the fiduciary is basically to maximize investment returns. But some argue that there are cases in which beneficiaries’ broader interests should take precedence, such as when investing in fossil fuels may give high financial returns but pose serious risks to people’s future (Lydenberg 2014; Sandberg 2013, 2016). In any case, it is often thought that fiduciary duties go beyond the ideal of a free market to instead give stronger protection to the weaker party of a fragile relationship.

As an alternative or compliment to fiduciary duty, some argue for the adoption of a code of ethics or professional conduct by financial professionals. A code of ethics would be less arduous in legal terms and is therefore more attractive to free market proponents (Koslowski 2009). It can also cover other fragile relationships (including those of bank-depositor, advisor-client, etc.). Just as doctors and lawyers have a professional code, then, so finance professionals could have one that stresses values such as honesty, due care and accuracy (de Bruin 2016, Graafland & Ven 2011). But according to critics, the financial industry is simply too subdivided into different roles and competencies to have a uniform code of ethics (Ragatz & Duska 2010). It is also unclear whether finance can be regarded as a profession in the traditional sense, which typically requires a body of specialized knowledge, high degrees of organization and self-regulation, and a commitment to public service (Boatright 2014, Herzog 2019).

Probably the most well-known ethical problem concerning fairness in finance, and also perhaps the one on which philosophers most disagree, is so-called insider trading. Put simply, this occurs when an agent uses his or her position within, or privileged information about, a company to buy or sell its shares (or other related financial assets) at favorable times and prices. For example, a CEO may buy shares in his or her company just before it announces a major increase in earnings that will boost the share price. While there is no fraud or breach of fiduciary duty, the agent seems to be exploiting an asymmetry of information.

Just as in the cases above, it is difficult to give an exact definition of insider trading, and the scope of its operative definition tends to vary across jurisdictions. Most commentators agree that it is the information and its attendant informational asymmetry that counts and, thus, the “insider” need not be inside the company at all—those abusing access to information could be family, friends or other tippees (Irvine 1987a, Moore 1990). Indeed, some argue that even stock analysts or journalists can be regarded as insiders if they trade on information that they have gathered themselves but not yet made publicly available. It is also debatable whether an actual trade has to take place or whether insider trading can consist in an omission to trade based on inside information, or also in enabling others to trade or not trade (Koslowski 2009).

Several philosophical perspectives have been used to explain what (if anything) is wrong with insider trading. A first perspective invokes the concept of fair play. Even in a situation with fully autonomous traders, the argument goes, market transactions are not fair if one party has access to information that the other has not. Fair play requires a “level playing field”, i.e., that no participant starts from an unfairly advantaged position (Werhane 1989, 1991). However, critics argue that this perspective imposes excessive demands of informational equality. There are many asymmetries of information in the market that are seemingly unproblematic, e.g., that an antiquary knows more about antiques than his or her customers (Lawson 1988, Machan 1996). So might it be the inaccessibility of inside information that is problematic? But against this, one could argue that, in principle, outsiders have the possibility to become insiders and thus to obtain the exact same information (Lawson 1988, Moore 1990).

A second perspective views insider trading as a breach of duty, not towards the counterparty in the trade but towards the source of the information. US legislation treats inside information as the property of the underlying company and, thus, insider trading is essentially a form of theft of corporate property (often called the misappropriation theory) (Lawson 1988). A related suggestion is that it can be seen as a violation of the fiduciary duty that insiders have towards the company for which they work (Moore 1990). However, critics argue that the misappropriation theory misrepresents the relationship between companies and insiders. On the one hand, there are many normal business situations in which insiders are permitted or even expected to spread inside information to outside sources (Boatright 2014). On the other hand, if the information is the property of the company, why do we not allow it to be “sold” to insiders as a form of remuneration? (Engelen & van Liedekerke 2010, Manne 1966)

A third perspective deals with the effects, both direct and indirect, of allowing insider trading. Interestingly, many argue that the direct effects of such a policy might be positive. As noted above, one of the main purposes of financial markets is to form (or “discover”) prices that reflect all available information about a company. Since insider trading contributes important information, it is likely to improve the process of price discovery (Manne 1966). Indeed, the same reasoning suggests that insider trading actually helps the counterparty in the trade to get a better price (since the insider’s activity is likely to move the price in the “right” direction) so it is a victimless crime (Engelen & Liedekerke 2010). However, others express concern over the indirect effects, which are likely to be more negative. Allowing insider trading may erode the moral standards of market participants by favoring opportunism over fair play (Werhane 1989). Moreover, many people may be dissuaded from even participating in the market since they feel that it is “rigged” to their disadvantage (Strudler 2009).

4.3 The Social Responsibility of Finance

We will now move on to take a societal view on finance, and discuss ideas relating to the broader social responsibilities of financial agents, that go beyond their basic role as market participants. We will discuss three such ideas here, respectively focusing on systemic risk (a responsibility to avoid societal harm), microfinance (a responsibility towards the poor or unbanked), and socially responsible investment (a responsibility to help address societal challenges).

One root cause of the financial crisis of 2008 was the very high levels of risk-taking of many banks and other financial agents. When these risks materialized, the financial system came to the brink of collapse. Many banks lost so much money that their normal lending operations were hampered, which in turn had negative effects on the real economy, with the result that millions of “ordinary” people around the world lost their jobs. Many governments stepped in to bail out the banks and in consequence sacrificed other parts of public spending. This is a prime example of how certain financial activities, when run amok, can have devastating effects on third parties and society in general.

Much subsequent debate has focused on so-called systemic risk, that is, the risk of failures across several agents which impairs the functioning of the financial system as such (Brunnermeier & Oehmke 2013, Smaga 2014). The concept of systemic risk gives rise to several prominent ethical issues. To what extent do financial agents have a moral duty to limit their contributions to systemic risk? It could be argued that financial transactions always carry risk and that this is “part of the game”. But the important point about systemic risk is that financial crises have negative effects on third parties (so-called externalities). This constitutes a prima facie case for a duty of precaution on the part of financial agents, based on the social responsibility to avoid causing unnecessary harm (James 2017, Linarelli 2017). In cases where precaution is impossible, one could add a related duty of rectification or compensation to the victims of the harm (Endörfer 2022). It is, however, a matter of philosophical dispute whether finance professionals can be held morally responsible for these harms (de Bruin 2018, Moggia 2021).

Two factors determine how much an agent’s activity contributes to systemic risk (Brunnermeier & Oehmke 2013, Smaga 2014). The first is financial risk of the agent’s activity in the traditional sense, i.e., the probability and size of the potential losses for that particular agent. A duty of precaution may here be taken to imply, e.g., stricter requirements on capital and liquidity reserves (roughly, the money that the agents must keep in their coffers for emergency situations) (Admati & Hellwig 2013). The second factor is the agent’s place in the financial system, which typically is measured by its interconnectedness with—and thereby potential for cascading effects upon—other agents. This factor indicates that the duty of precaution is stronger for financial agents that are “systemically important” or, as the saying goes, “too-big-to-fail” institutions (Stiglitz 2009).

As an alternative to the reasoning above, one may argue that the duty of precaution is more properly located on the collective, i.e., political level (James 2012, 2017). We return to this suggestion below (in section 5.1 ).

Even in normal times, people with very low income or wealth have hardly any access to basic financial services. Commercial banks have little to gain from offering such services to them; there is an elevated risk of loan losses (since the poor lack collateral) and it is costly to administer a large amount of very small loans (Armendáriz & Morduch 2010). Moreover, there will likely be cases where some bank officers discriminate against underprivileged groups, even where extensive legal protection is in place. An initiative that seeks to remedy these problems is “microfinance”, that is, the extension of financial services, such as lending and saving, to poor people who are otherwise “unbanked”. The initiative started in some of the poorest countries of the world, such as Bangladesh and India.

The justifications offered for microfinance are similar to the justifications offered for development aid. A popular justification holds that affluent people have a duty of assistance towards the poor, and microfinance is thought to be a particularly efficient way to alleviate poverty (Yunus 1998, 2007). But is this correct? Judging from the growing number of empirical “impact studies”, it seems more correct to say that microfinance is sometimes helpful, but at other times can be either ineffective or have negative side-effects (Hudon & Sandberg 2013, Roodman 2012). Another justification holds that there is a basic human right to subsistence, and that this includes a right to savings and credit (Hudon 2009, Meyer 2018). But critics argue that the framework of human rights is not a good fit for financial services that come with both benefits and challenges (Gershman & Morduch 2015, Sorell 2015).

Microfinance is of course different from development aid in that it involves commercial banking relations. This invites the familiar political debate of state- versus market-based support. Proponents of microfinance argue that traditional state-led development projects have been too rigid and corrupt, whereas market-based initiatives are more flexible and help people to help themselves (Armendáriz & Morduch 2010, Yunus 2007). According to critics, however, it is the other way around: Markets will tend to breed greed and inequality, whereas real development is created by large-scale investments in education and infrastructure (Bateman 2010, H. Weber 2004).

In recent years, the microfinance industry has witnessed several “ethical scandals” that seemingly testify to the risk of market excesses. Reports have indicated that interest rates on microloans average at 20–30% per annum, and can sometimes be in excess of 100%, which is much higher than the rates for non-poor borrowers. This raises questions about usury (Hudon & Ashta 2013; Rosenberg, Gonzalez, & Narain 2009). However, some suggest a defense of “second best”, or last resort, when other sources of aid or cheaper credit are unavailable (Sandberg 2012). Microfinance institutions have also been accused of using coercive lending techniques and forceful loan recovery practices (Dichter & Harper (eds) 2007; Priyadarshee & Ghalib 2012). This raises questions about the ethical justifiability of commercial activity directed at the desperately poor, because very poor customers may have no viable alternative to accepting deals that are both unfair and exploitative (Arnold & Valentin 2013, Hudon & Sandberg 2013).

Socially responsible investment refers to the emerging practice whereby financial agents give weight to putatively ethical, social or environmental considerations in investment decisions—e.g., decisions about what bonds or stocks to buy or sell, or how to engage with the companies in one’s portfolio. This is sometimes part of a strictly profit-driven investment philosophy, based on the assumption that companies with superior social performance also have superior financial performance (Richardson & Cragg 2010). But more commonly, it is perceived as an alternative to mainstream investment. The background argument here is that market pricing mechanisms, and financial markets in particular, seem to be unable to promote sufficient levels of social and environmental responsibility in firms. Even though there is widespread social agreement on the evils of sweatshop labor and environmental degradation, for instance, mainstream investors are still financing enterprises that sustain such unjustifiable practices. Therefore, there is a need for a new kind of investor with a stronger sense of social responsibility (Sandberg 2008, Cowton & Sandberg 2012).

The simplest and most common approach among these alternative investors is to avoid investments in companies that are perceived to be ethically problematic. This is typically justified from a deontological idea to the effect that it is wrong to invest in someone else’s wrongdoing (Irvine 1987b, Langtry 2002, Larmer 1997). There are at least three interpretations of such moral “taint”: (1) the view that it is wrong in itself to profit from others’ wrongdoings, or to benefit from other people’s suffering; (2) the view that it is wrong to harm others, or also to facilitate harm to other; or (3) the view that there is a form of expressive or symbolic wrongdoing involved in “morally supporting” or “accepting” wrongful activities.

The deontological perspective above has been criticized for being too black-and-white. On the one hand, it seems difficult to find any investment opportunity that is completely “pure” or devoid of possible moral taint (Kolers 2001). On the other hand, the relationship between the investor and the investee is not as direct as one may think. To the extent that investors buy and sell shares on the stock market, they are not engaging with the underlying companies but rather with other investors. The only way in which such transactions could benefit the companies would be through movements in the share price (which determines the companies’ so-called cost of capital), but it is extremely unlikely that a group of ethical investors can significantly affect that price. After all, the raison d’être of stock exchanges is exactly to create markets that are sufficiently liquid to maintain stable prices (Haigh & Hazelton 2004, Hudson 2005). In response to this, the deontologist could appeal to some notion of universalizability or collective responsibility: perhaps the right question to ask is not “what happens if I do this?” but instead “what happens if we all do this?”. However, such more complicated philosophical positions have problems of their own (see also rule consequentialism and collective responsibility )

A rival perspective on socially responsible investment is the (more straightforward) consequentialist idea that investors’ duty towards society consists in using their financial powers to promote positive societal goods, such as social justice and environmental sustainability. This perspective is typically taken to prefer more progressive investment practices, such as pushing management to adopt more ambitious social policies and/or seeking out environmentally friendly technology firms (Mackenzie 1997, Sandberg 2008). Of course, the flip side of such practices, which may explain why they are less common in the market, is that they invite greater financial risks (Sandberg 2011). It remains an open question whether socially responsible investment will grow enough in size to make financial markets a force for societal change.

Recent work has started exploring whether concrete sustainable finance policies (such as those suggested by the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan) will generate sufficient funds to pay for climate change mitigation and adaptation, based as they are on policies of information provision only (De Bruin 2023).

5. Political Philosophy

Discussions about the social responsibility of finance are obviously premised on the observation that the financial system forms a central infrastructure of modern economies and societies. As we noted at the outset, it is important to see that the system contains both private elements (such as commercial banks, insurance companies, and investment funds) and public elements (such as central banks and regulatory bodies). However, issues concerning the proper balance between these elements, especially the proper role and reach of the state, are perennially recurrent in both popular and philosophical debates.

The financial system and the provision of money indeed raise a number of questions that connect it to the “big questions” of political philosophy: including questions of democracy, justice, and legitimacy, at both the national and global levels (on the history of political thinking about money see Eich 2019, 2020, 2022; Ingham 2004, 2019; Martin 2013). The discussions around finance in political philosophy can be grouped under three broad areas: financialization and democracy; finance, money and domestic justice; and finance and global justice. We consider these now in turn.

Many of the questions political philosophy raises about finance have to do with “financialization”. The phenomenon of “financialization”, whereby the economic system has become characterized by the increasing dominance of finance capital and by systems of financial intermediation (Ertürk et al. 2008; Davis 2011; Engelen et al. 2011; Palley 2013), is of potentially substantial normative significance in a number of regards. A related normative concern is the potential growth in political power of the financial sector, which may be seen as a threat to democratic politics.

These worries are, in effect, an amplification of familiar concerns about the “structural power” or “structural constraints” of capital, whereby capitalist investors are able to reduce the freedom of action of democratic governments by threatening “investment strikes” when their preferred political options are not pursued (see Lindblom 1977, 1982; Przeworski & Wallerstein 1988; Cohen 1989; B. Barry 2002; Christiano 2010, 2012; Furendal & O’Neill 2022). To take one recent version of these worries, Stuart White argues that a republican commitment to popular sovereignty is in significant tension with the acceptance of an economic system where important choices about investment, and hence the direction of development of the economy, are under the control of financial interests (White 2011).

In many such debates, the fault-line seems to be the traditional one between those who favor social coordination by free markets, and hence strict limitations on state activities, and those who favor democratic politics, and hence strict limitations on markets (without denying that there can be intermediate positions). But the current financial system is not a pure creature of the free market. In the financial system that we currently see, the principle that individuals are to be held financially accountable for their actions, and that they will therefore be “disciplined” by markets, is patchy at best. One major issue, discussed above, is the problem of banks that are so large and interconnected that their failure would risk taking down the whole financial system—hence, they can anticipate that they will be bailed out by tax-payers’ money, which creates a huge “moral hazard” problem (e.g., Pistor 2013, 2017). In addition, current legal systems find it difficult to impose accountability for complex processes of divided labor, which is why there were very few legal remedies after the financial crisis of 2008 (e.g., Reiff 2017).

The lack of accountability intensifies worries about the power relations between democratic politicians and individuals or corporations in the financial realm. One question is whether we can even apply our standard concept of democracy to societies that have the kinds of financial systems we see today. We may ask whether societies that are highly financialized can ever be true democracies, or whether they are more likely to be “post-democracies” (Crouch 2004). For example, states with high levels of sovereign debt will need to consider the reaction of financial markets in every significant policy decision (see, e.g., Streeck 2013 [2014], see also Klein 2020) Moreover “revolving doors” between private financial institutions and supervising authorities impact on the ability of public officials to hold financial agents accountable. This is similar to the problems of conflicts of interest raised above (see sections 2 and 4.2.2 ). If financial contracts become a central, or maybe even the most central, form of social relations (Lazzarato 2012), this may create an incompatibility with the equal standing of citizens, irrespective of financial position, that should be the basis of a democratic society and its public sphere of deliberation (see also Bennett 2020 from an epistemic perspective).

While finance has, over long stretches of history, been rather strictly regulated, there has been a reversed trend towards deregulation since roughly the 1970s. After the financial crisis of 2008, there have been many calls for reregulation. Proposals include higher capital ratios in banks (Admati & Hellwig 2013), a return to the separation of commercial banking from speculative finance, as had been the case, in the US, during the period when the Glass-Steagall Act was in place (Kay 2015), or a financial transaction tax (Wollner 2014). However, given that the financial system is a global system, one controversial question is whether regulatory steps by single countries would have any effect other than capital flight.

When it comes to domestic social justice, the central question relating to the finance system concerns the ways in which the realization of justice can be helped or hindered by how the financial system is organized.

A first question here, already touched upon in the discussion about microfinance above ( section 4.3.2 ), concerns the status of citizens as participants in financial markets. Should they all have a right to certain financial services such as a bank account or certain forms of loans, because credit should be seen as a primary good in capitalist economies (see, e.g., Hudon 2009, Sorell 2015, Meyer 2018)? More broadly, how does the pattern of access to credit affect the distribution of freedom and unfreedom within society? (see Dietsch 2021; Preiss 2021). These are not only issues for very poor countries, but also for richer countries with high economic inequality, where it becomes a question of domestic justice. In some countries all residents have the right to open a basic bank account (see bank accounts in the EU in Other Internet Resources ). For others this is not the case. It has been argued that not having access to basic financial services creates an unfairness, because it drives poorer individuals into a cash economy in which they are more vulnerable to exploitative lenders, and in which it is more difficult to build up savings (e.g., Baradaran 2015). Hence, it has been suggested either to regulate banking services for individuals more strictly (e.g., Herzog 2017a), to consider various forms of household debt relief (Persad 2018), or to offer a public banking service, e.g., run by the postal office, which offers basic services at affordable costs (Baradaran 2015).

Secondly, financialization may also have more direct effects on socio-economic inequality. Those with managerial positions within the financial sector are disproportionately represented among the very top end of the income distribution, and so the growth of inequality can in part be explained by the growth in the financial sector itself (Piketty 2014). There may also be an effect on social norms, whereby the “hypermeritocratic” norms of the financial sector have played a part in increasing social tolerance for inequality in society more broadly (Piketty 2014: 265, 2020; see also O’Neill 2017, 2021). As Dietsch et al. point out, the process of increasing financialization within the economies of the advanced industrial societies has been encouraged by the actions of central banks over recent decades, and so the issue of financialization also connects closely to questions regarding the justice and legitimacy of central banks and monetary policy (Dietsch, Claveau, & Fontan 2016, 2018; see also Jacobs & King 2016).

Thirdly, many debates about the relation between distributive justice and the financial system revolve around the market for mortgages, because for many individuals, a house is the single largest item for which they need to take out a loan, and their mortgage their main point of interaction with the financial system. This means that the question of who has access to mortgage loans and at what price can have a major impact on the overall distribution of income and wealth. In addition, it has an impact on how financial risks are distributed in society. Highly indebted individuals are more vulnerable when it comes to ups and downs either in their personal lives (e.g., illness, loss of job, divorce) or in the economy as a whole (e.g., economic slumps) (Mian & Sufi 2014). The danger here is that existing inequalities—which many theories of justice would describe as unjust—are reinforced even further (Herzog 2017a).

Here, however, a question about the institutional division of labor arises: which goals of distributive justice should be achieved within markets—and specifically, within financial markets—and which ones by other means, for example through taxation and redistribution? The latter has been the standard approach used by many welfare systems: the idea being to let markets run their course, and then to achieve the desired patterns of distribution by taxation and redistribution. If one remains within that paradigm, questions arise about whether the financial sector should be taxed more highly. In contrast, the approach of “pre-distribution” (Hacker 2011; O’Neill & Williamson 2012; O’Neill 202), or what Dietsch calls “process redistribution” (2010), is to design the rules of the economic game such that they contribute to bringing about the distributive pattern that is seen as just. This could, for example, mean regulating banking services and credit markets in ways that reduce inequality, for example by imposing regulations on payday lenders and banks, so that poor individuals are protected from falling into a spiral of ever higher debt. A more radical view could be to see the financial problems faced by such individuals as being caused by more general structural injustices the solution of which does not necessarily require interventions with the financial industry, but rather more general redistributive (or predistributive) policies.

Money creation: Another alternative theoretical approach is to integrate distributive concerns into monetary policy, i.e., when it comes to the creation of money. So far, central banks have focused on the stability of currencies and, in some cases, levels of employment. This technical focus, together with the risk that politicians might abuse monetary policy to try to boost the economy before elections, have been used in arguments for putting the control of the money supply into the hands of technical experts, removing monetary policy from democratic politics. But after the financial crisis of 2008, many central banks have used unconventional measures, such as “quantitative easing”, which had strongly regressive effects, favoring the owners of stocks or of landed property (Fontan et al. 2016, Dietsch 2017); they did not take into account other societal goals, e.g., the financing of green energy, either. This raises new questions of justice: are such measures justified if their declared aim is to move the economy out of a slump, which presumably also helps disadvantaged individuals (Haldane 2014)? Would other measures, for instance “helicopter money” that is distributed to all citizens, have been a better alternative? And if such measures are used, is it still appropriate to think of central banks as institutions in which nothing but technical expertise is required, or should there be some form of accountability to society? (Fontan, Claveau, & Dietsch 2016; Dietsch 2017; Riles 2018; see also Tucker 2018; van ’t Klooster 2020; James & Hockett 2020, Downey 2021). [ 2 ]

We have already discussed the general issue of the ontological status of money ( section 1.1 above). But there are also significant questions in political philosophy regarding the question of where, and by what sorts of institutions, should the money supply be controlled. One complicating factor here is the extensive disagreement about the institutional basis of money creation, as described above. One strand of the credit theory of money emphasizes that in today’s world, money creation is a process in which commercial banks play a significant role. These banks in effect create new money when they make new loans to individual or business customers (see McLeay, Radia, & Thomas 2014; see also Palley 1996; Ryan-Collins et al. 2012; Werner 2014a,b). James Tobin refers to commercial bank-created money, in an evocative if now dated image as “fountain pen money”, that is, money created with the swish of the bank manager’s fountain pen (Tobin 1963).

However, the relationship between private commercial banks and the central bank is a complicated one, such that we might best think of money creation as a matter involving a kind of hybrid public-private partnership. Hockett and Omarova refer to this relationship as constituting a “finance franchise”, with private banks being granted on a “franchise” basis the money-creating powers of the sovereign monetary authority, while van ’t Klooster describes this relation between the public and private as constituting a “hybrid monetary constitution” (Hockett & Omarova 2017; van ’t Klooster 2017; see also Bell 2001). In this hybrid public-private monetary system, it is true that private commercial banks create money, but they nevertheless do so in a way that involves being regulated and subject to the authority of the central bank within each monetary jurisdiction, with that central bank also acting as “lender of last resort” (Bagehot 1873) when inter-bank lending dries up. [ 3 ]

When the curious public-private nature of money creation is brought into focus, it is not surprising that there should exist views advocating a shift away from this hybrid monetary constitution, either in the direction of a fully public option, or a fully private system of money creation.

Advocates of fully public banking envisage a system in which private banks are stripped of their authority to create new money, and where instead the money supply is directly controlled either by the government or by some other state agency; for example by the central bank lending directly to firms and households. Such a position can be defended on a number of normative grounds: that a public option would allow for greater financial stability, that a fully public system of money creation would allow a smoother transmission of democratic decisions regarding economic governance; or simply because of the consequences of such a system with regards to socioeconomic inequality and environmental sustainability (see Jackson & Dyson 2012; Wolf 2014a,b; Lainà 2015; Dyson, Hodgson, & van Lerven 2016a,b; Ingham, Coutts, & Konzelmann 2016; Dow 2016; Wodruff 2019; van’t Klooster 2019, Mellor 2019, Dietsch 2021; for commentary and criticism see Goodhart & Jensen 2015; Fontana & Sawyer 2016, Larue et al. 2020).

In stark contrast, a number of libertarian authors have defended the view that the central bank should have no role in money creation, with the money supply being entirely a matter for private suppliers (and with the consumers of money able to choose between different rival suppliers), under a system of “free banking” (e.g., Simons 1936; Friedman 1962; von Hayek 1978; Selgin 1988). Advocacy of private money creation has received a more recent stimulus with the rise of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies, with some of Bitcoin’s advocates drawing on similar libertarian arguments to those offered by Hayek and Selgin (see Golumbia 2016, Robison 2022). One can also mention the “alternative currencies” movement here which defends private money creation on entirely different grounds, most often by appeal to the value of community (see Larue 2022, Larue et al. 2022).

Finally, a number of issues relate questions about finance to questions about global justice. The debate about global justice (see also global justice ) has weighed the pros and cons of “statist” and “cosmopolitan” approaches, that is, approaches to justice that would focus on the nation state (maybe with some additional duties of beneficence to the globally poor) or on the global scale. The financial system is one of the most globalized systems of social interaction that currently exist, and global entanglements are hard to deny (e.g., Valentini 2011: 195–8). The question thus is whether this creates duties of justice on the financial system, and if so, whether it fulfills these duties, i.e., whether it contributes to making the world more globally just, or whether it tends in the opposite direction (or whether it is neutral).

There are a number of institutions, especially the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), that constitute a rudimentary global order of finance. Arguably, many countries, especially poorer ones, cannot reasonably opt out of the rules established by these institutions (e.g., Hassoun 2012, Krishnamurthy 2014). It might therefore appear to be required by justice that these institutions be governed in a way that represents the interests of all countries. But because of historical path-dependencies, and because a large part of their budget comes from Western countries, the governance structures are strongly biased in their favor (for example, the US can veto all important decisions in the IMF). Miller (2010: 134–41) has described this situation as “indirect financial rule” by the US (see also Herzog 2021).

An issue worth noting in this context is the fact that the US dollar, and to a lesser degree the Euro, function as de facto global currencies, with a large part of global trade being conducted in these currencies (e.g., Mehrling 2011, Eichengreen 2011). This allows the issuing countries to run a current account deficit, which amounts to a redistribution from poorer to richer countries for which compensation might be owed (Reddy 2005: 224–5). This fact also raises questions about the distribution of power in the global sphere, which has often been criticized as favoring Western countries (e.g., Gulati 1980, United Nations 2009). However, global financial markets serve not only to finance trade in goods and services; there are also questions about fluctuations in these markets that result exclusively from speculations (see also sect.1.4.3 above). Such fluctuations can disproportionately harm poorer countries, which are more vulnerable to movements of capital or rapid changes in commodity prices. Hence, an old proposal that has recently been revived and defended from a perspective of global justice is that of a “Tobin tax” (Tobin 1978), which would tax financial transactions and thereby reduce volatility in international financial markets (Reddy 2005, Wollner 2014).

A second feature of the current global order that has been criticized from a perspective of justice is the “borrowing privilege”. As Pogge describes (e.g., 2008: chap. 4), the governments of countries can borrow on international financial markets, no matter whether they have democratic legitimacy or not. This means that rogue governments can finance themselves by incurring debts that future generations of citizens will have to repay.

Sovereign debt raises a number of questions that are related to global justice. Usually, the contracts on which they are based are considered as absolutely binding (e.g., Suttle 2016), which can threaten national sovereignty (Dietsch 2011), and raises questions of the moral and political responsibilities both of citizens of debtor nations, and of creditor countries themselves (Wiedenbrüg, 2018a, 2018b). These problems obtain in particular with regard to what has been called “odious” debt (Sack 1927, Howse 2007, Dimitriu 2015, King 2016): cases in which government officials sign debt contracts in order to enrich themselves, with lenders being aware of this fact. Such cases have been at the center of calls for a jubilee for indebted nations. At the moment, there are no binding international rules for how to deal with sovereign bankruptcy, and countries in financial distress have no systematic possibility of making their claims heard, which is problematic from a perspective of justice (e.g., Palley 2003; Reddy 2005: 26–33; Herman 2007; C. Barry & Tomitova 2007; Wollner 2018). The IMF, which often supports countries in restructuring sovereign debt, has often made this support conditional upon certain requirements about rearranging the economic structures of a country (for a discussion of the permissibility of such practices see C. Barry 2011).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the issue of financial regulation has a global dimension in the sense that capital is mobile across national boundaries, creating the threats to democracy described above. This fact makes it difficult for individual countries, especially smaller ones, to install the more rigid financial regulations that would be required from a perspective of justice. Just as with many other questions of global justice (see, e.g., Dietsch 2015 on taxation), we seem to see a failure of coordination between countries, which leads to a “race to the bottom”. Making global financial institutions more just is therefore likely to require significant levels of international cooperation.

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Is money truly the root of all evil?

It is important to neither view wealth as inherently good or bad and get the balance right, says zach holz.

The way you view money affects your spending and saving habits, as well as your personal wellbeing. Getty Images

It seems like half my Facebook feed these days is made up of posts from my more progressive friends and family members saying we should eat the rich.

This is not a new sentiment; railing against money and those who have it is a long and venerable tradition, and it's one that is often enshrined in religious traditions as well. In the Christianity that is so prevalent in my native US, the Bible is often misquoted to say that "money is the root of all evil" (the actual quote is the “love of money is the root of all evil”). Another popular phrase from the Bible is that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven".

This attitude is certainly not limited to a religious context. Populists of all stripes have manipulated populations (and continue to do so) by calling out the evil nature of the landowners, slumlords, fat cats and rich corporatists that use society for their own greedy ends. And rich people certainly give the rest of us plenty of ammunition to aim back at their sleek, well-groomed faces. Corporate malfeasance and corruption are highlighted nearly every day, and there is certainly plenty out there that we haven't heard about yet, or may never come to light.

Some of us may even have been financially taken advantage of and have seen the negative effects of greed close up. I know of many expats here in the UAE who have had years of their savings taken as 'fees' by unscrupulous financial sharks. Their love of money certainly causes these financial predators to act in harmful ways.

But what is it about money that makes us view those that have it and the acquisition of it in such a negative light? After all, money has no will. It cannot itself act upon the world. It can buy things and experiences and services and give us options, but it can't murder or pollute or steal.

If there is something inherently vile about money and its gain, does that mean we all should avoid it and live in poverty to avoid its ill effects? After all, our lives would certainly be much simpler and easier if we didn't have to spend so much time and effort chasing money.

The key is to choose goals that don't require too much extra effort or willpower. Getty Images

As far as I can see, money isn't good or evil, it is simply an amplifier. A single poor person cannot cause much harm, even with terrible intent. But a corporation, loaded with cash, can sicken and kill thousands of people, or even millions through negligence or the pursuit of profit. When people have a great deal of money, it can lead them to let their bad habits have free reign, with nothing to control their worst impulses and addictions.

But money can also amplify our ability to do good in the world. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their partners are credited with saving over 122 million lives through their childhood vaccination programmes, and nearly eradicating several tropical diseases. The massive fortune that Elon Musk received from the sale of PayPal has allowed him to start companies he believes can help save the planet from climate change and explore space.

If you want to influence governments to pass helpful laws for issues you care about, you need money behind you. Even some of our favourite fictional characters reflect this; Batman and Iron Man are both billionaires who help save the planet on a regular basis. The fact that their nemeses are also often wealthy only further illustrates this point.

How you view money, whether you have been raised to see it as good or evil or desirable or something to spurn, has a lot of control over your actions towards it. If you think that only rich people are evil, you may not make choices that could garner you financial security and may leave you in a place of hardship your whole life. It may support your decision to spend every dirham you get your hands on, because you don't want to accumulate a soul-destroying hoard.

On the other hand, if you have been raised to think that the pursuit of money is the whole point of life, you may sacrifice your family, your friendships and your health while chasing it. Many of my students at my expensive international school rarely see their parents because they are often travelling for work. That time will never return, and it is often given up in the pursuit of riches.

It is crucial to have a good relationship with money, spending and saving. If we don't, we can be stuck in terrible jobs or lacking the motivation to develop our skills and knowledge. Money itself is not good or bad, but it is something for which we often trade our precious time. Getting the balance right can lead to a happy, stress-free life and the ability to make the social changes we want to see. Getting this wrong can destroy us, our families, our communities and the planet.

Dubai schoolteacher Zach Holz (@HappiestTeach) documents his journey towards financial independence on his personal finance blog The Happiest Teacher

On The Money

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How Money Changes the Way You Think and Feel

The term “affluenza”—a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, defined as a “painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste, resulting from the dogged pursuit of more”—is often dismissed as a silly buzzword created to express our cultural disdain for consumerism. Though often used in jest, the term may contain more truth than many of us would like to think.

Whether affluenza is real or imagined, money really does change everything, as the song goes—and those of high social class do tend to see themselves much differently than others. Wealth (and the pursuit of it) has been linked with immoral behavior—and not just in movies like The Wolf of Wall Street .

Psychologists who study the impact of wealth and inequality on human behavior have found that money can powerfully influence our thoughts and actions in ways that we’re often not aware of, no matter our economic circumstances. Although wealth is certainly subjective, most of the current research measures wealth on scales of income, job status, or socioeconomic circumstances, like educational attainment and intergenerational wealth.

Here are seven things you should know about the psychology of money and wealth.

More money, less empathy?

Several studies have shown that wealth may be at odds with empathy and compassion . Research published in the journal Psychological Science found that people of lower economic status were better at reading others’ facial expressions —an important marker of empathy—than wealthier people.

“A lot of what we see is a baseline orientation for the lower class to be more empathetic and the upper class to be less [so],” study co-author Michael Kraus told Time . “Lower-class environments are much different from upper-class environments. Lower-class individuals have to respond chronically to a number of vulnerabilities and social threats. You really need to depend on others so they will tell you if a social threat or opportunity is coming, and that makes you more perceptive of emotions.”

While a lack of resources fosters greater emotional intelligence, having more resources can cause bad behavior in its own right. UC Berkeley research found that even fake money could make people behave with less regard for others. Researchers observed that when two students played Monopoly, one having been given a great deal more Monopoly money than the other, the wealthier player expressed initial discomfort, but then went on to act aggressively, taking up more space and moving his pieces more loudly, and even taunting the player with less money.

Wealth can cloud moral judgment

It is no surprise in this post-2008 world to learn that wealth may cause a sense of moral entitlement. A UC Berkeley study found that in San Francisco—where the law requires that cars stop at crosswalks for pedestrians to pass—drivers of luxury cars were four times less likely than those in less expensive vehicles to stop and allow pedestrians the right of way. They were also more likely to cut off other drivers.

Another study suggested that merely thinking about money could lead to unethical behavior. Researchers from Harvard and the University of Utah found that study participants were more likely to lie or behave immorally after being exposed to money-related words.

“Even if we are well-intentioned, even if we think we know right from wrong, there may be factors influencing our decisions and behaviors that we’re not aware of,” University of Utah associate management professor Kristin Smith-Crowe, one of the study’s co-authors, told MarketWatch .

Wealth has been linked with addiction

While money itself doesn’t cause addiction or substance abuse, wealth has been linked with a higher susceptibility to addiction problems. A number of studies have found that affluent children are more vulnerable to substance abuse issues , potentially because of high pressure to achieve and isolation from parents. Studies also found that kids who come from wealthy parents aren’t necessarily exempt from adjustment problems—in fact, research found that on several measures of maladjustment, high school students of high socioeconomic status received higher scores than inner-city students. Researchers found that these children may be more likely to internalize problems, which has been linked with substance abuse.

But it’s not just adolescents: Even in adulthood, the rich outdrink the poor by more than 27 percent.

Money itself can become addictive

The pursuit of wealth itself can also become a compulsive behavior. As psychologist Dr. Tian Dayton explained, a compulsive need to acquire money is often considered part of a class of behaviors known as process addictions, or “behavioral addictions,” which are distinct from substance abuse.

These days, the idea of process addictions is widely accepted. Process addictions are addictions that involve a compulsive and/or an out-of-control relationship with certain behaviors such as gambling, sex, eating, and, yes, even money.…There is a change in brain chemistry with a process addiction that’s similar to the mood-altering effects of alcohol or drugs. With process addictions, engaging in a certain activity—say viewing pornography, compulsive eating, or an obsessive relationship with money—can kickstart the release of brain/body chemicals, like dopamine, that actually produce a “high” that’s similar to the chemical high of a drug. The person who is addicted to some form of behavior has learned, albeit unconsciously, to manipulate his own brain chemistry.

While a process addiction is not a chemical addiction, it does involve compulsive behavior —in this case, an addiction to the good feeling that comes from receiving money or possessions—which can ultimately lead to negative consequences and harm the individual’s well-being. Addiction to spending money—sometimes known as shopaholism —is another, more common type of money-associated process addiction.

Wealthy children may be more troubled

Children growing up in wealthy families may seem to have it all, but having it all may come at a high cost. Wealthier children tend to be more distressed than lower-income kids, and are at high risk for anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, cheating, and stealing. Research has also found high instances of binge-drinking and marijuana use among the children of high-income, two-parent, white families.

“In upwardly mobile communities, children are often pressed to excel at multiple academic and extracurricular pursuits to maximize their long-term academic prospects—a phenomenon that may well engender high stress,” writes psychologist Suniya Luthar in “The Culture Of Affluence.” “At an emotional level, similarly, isolation may often derive from the erosion of family time together because of the demands of affluent parents’ career obligations and the children’s many after-school activities.”

We tend to perceive the wealthy as “evil”

On the other side of the spectrum, lower-income individuals are likely to judge and stereotype those who are wealthier than themselves, often judging the wealthy as being “cold.” (Of course, it is also true that the poor struggle with their own set of societal stereotypes.)

Rich people tend to be a source of envy and distrust, so much so that we may even take pleasure in their struggles, according to Scientific American . University of Pennsylvania research demonstrated that most people tend to link perceived profits with perceived social harm. When participants were asked to assess various companies and industries (some real, some hypothetical), both liberals and conservatives ranked institutions perceived to have higher profits with greater evil and wrongdoing across the board, independent of the company or industry’s actions in reality.

Money can’t buy happiness (or love)

We tend to seek money and power in our pursuit of success (and who doesn’t want to be successful, after all?), but it may be getting in the way of the things that really matter: happiness and love.

More on Inequality

Read Jason Marsh's award-winning story on how inequality hurts everyone's happiness .

Discover how inequality can make the wealthy less cooperative .

Find out why affluent people are more likely to break rules .

Explore whether the rich are really less generous .

There is no direct correlation between income and happiness. After a certain level of income that can take care of basic needs and relieve strain ( some say $50,000 a year , some say $75,000 ), wealth makes hardly any difference to overall well-being and happiness and, if anything, only harms well-being: Extremely affluent people actually suffer from higher rates of depression . Some data has suggested money itself doesn’t lead to dissatisfaction—instead, it’s the ceaseless striving for wealth and material possessions that may lead to unhappiness. Materialistic values have even been linked with lower relationship satisfaction .

But here’s something to be happy about: More Americans are beginning to look beyond money and status when it comes to defining success in life. According to a 2013 LifeTwist study , only around one-quarter of Americans still believe that wealth determines success.

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post and Fulfillment Daily .

About the Author

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Is money the root of all evil, or good for the soul?

First of all, the entire quote from Pauls’ Letter to Timothy is “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

So the love of money (and of all the things that money can buy) is the root of all evil according to St. Paul. Not money in and of itself. Having money is no more evil than not having money; neither of them is good or bad in and of themselves. It’s the love of money, the lust for all the things money can buy that causes so much heartache and discontent and yes, sometimes outright evil.

If money isn’t good or bad, what is it? What is money for? Most people seem to think money is for buying things; for the consumption of all the things money can buy. Or at least that is how most people act (check out the videos on the Friday after Thanksgiving Shopping Riots that take place for an example of what I mean.) Which is why the term “consumerism” exists.

“ The noun consumerism refers to the theory that spending money and consuming goods is good for the economy.”

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/consumerism .

And I think this idea of consumerism encourages the love of money, but not respect for money and what it can do.

Grandpa and I disagree with the idea that money is for consumption; we know that things have to be produced before they can be consumed. So money is used to build things, to create things, to create prosperity and better living conditions. Prosperity has to be produced before it can be consumed; money is for producing prosperity.

But that’s not all. Money is good for the soul and useful in becoming virtuous. Think about what it takes to earn money. You have to do something someone else will pay you to do; and that usually means they find what you do useful and beneficial. Maybe you have a special talent they need, or maybe you’re just willing to do the dirty, boring, smelly jobs they don’t want to do anymore. But either way, what you do is useful; you have a skill or an attitude that you can develop and improve on and grow. And I believe the best and longest-lasting source of self-esteem comes from doing things other people find useful. And how do you know you are useful? They pay you! Earning money builds work ethic and self-esteem. Those are virtuous qualities.

And once you’ve earned a buck, you have to save a dime (or better yet a quarter… ☺ ). Saving money takes patience, and discipline, and the ability to defer gratification; to suffer some hardship today for the sake of better things in the future. It takes humility and self-esteem to drive used cars, pack your own lunch, take staycations and live in small homes while your friends and neighbors drive new cars, eat out every day, go on fabulous trips and live in mansions. Patience, discipline, humility, and self-esteem are all good qualities to have.

And saving money leads to investing money, which you can do yourself or hire someone to do for you. Either way, investing money requires planning, and goal setting, and people smarts. It encourages you to learn the basics of accounting and finance. It requires focus and mental clarity and the ability to integrate thought AND emotion into your decision making. All very useful skills.

And finally, having money is a responsibility. It requires knowledge of tax law and encourages stewardship and thoughtful deliberation about what is important to you and why so that you use the money in ways that are meaningful and helpful to you and to others. You have to teach your kids how to earn, save, invest, and have money with all the responsibilities that go along with it.

Which is what Grandpa has been trying to do, and encouraging me to do, for the last several years. And I think you girls are getting it; you all know how to work and are willing to do the dirty jobs if that’s what it takes. You don’t spend your money stupidly, I’ve seen you shop for bargains and at thrift stores and really be thoughtful in your spending. Now is a good time for you to start thinking about saving, and I’m happy to help you with that if I can, but I’m really proud of all of you for having good financial heads on your shoulders.

Let me know if I can help. I love you, Dad

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Money is not the root of all evil

Why a common saying is misunderstood

By Trent Hamm Guest blogger

September 5, 2011

I just received an email from a concerned friend of mine who had never read The Simple Dollar before. I asked for permission to share this part of the email with you (with just a touch of editing).

I can’t believe you’re actually using your life and your energy and your mind talking about money and encouraging other people to accumulate money. Money is the root of all evil. It provides a path to greed and gluttony and cruelty. Why are you devoting your wonderful life to teaching people how to walk that path? What are you doing to yourself? What are you teaching your children?

I originally intended to respond to this email privately, but I realized that the answer was something really worth sharing on here, so I generalized it a bit and turned it into the article you’re about to read.

First of all, your comment that “money is the root of all evil” is a misquote. You’re referencing 1 Timothy 6:10 from the Bible, which is usually translated as “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” or simply “for the love of money is the root of all evil.” Not money itself, but the love of money.

That’s a key distinction. Money itself is neither good nor evil. It’s simply a medium of exchange. It’s a way for people to trade one thing – say, their money or their time or their energy – for other things, like food or housing.

What you choose to use your money for may be good and it may be evil and it may just be a big missed opportunity. You could use it to make sure your children eat very nutritionally balanced meals or you could use it to hire a hit man to take out your rivals. You could use it to help improve orphanages for extremely impoverished children or burn a million British pounds just for the fun of it .

How you use that money is a reflection of who you are and what you value. Whether it’s “good” or “evil” is as much your own judgment on how you spend money as it is a judgment passed on you by others who observe how you use it.

The entire purpose of this site is to help people become more efficient in their exchanges: to earn more money, to spend less on the things that they need, to avoid wasting their money on interest payments to lenders, and so on. Again, that’s neither good nor evil. It simply widens the door to the good and evil choices that people have with their money.

What that scripture is talking about is the love of money being the root of all evil. The argument is that when you begin to focus on the accumulation of wealth as the highest purpose in your life, you put a lot of other virtues below it. You value wealth accumulation over the welfare of others, in simple terms.

When you see other people as merely things that can be exploited to improve your wealth accumulation, that is evil, in my opinion. Companies that would knowingly sell toys to children that are covered in lead-based paint are evil. Companies that would sell known carcinogens for consumption and not label them are evil. Individuals who would exploit and steal from the defenseless are evil.

These are situations where, in that person’s mind, the love of money has trumped other virtues. I am explicitly opposed to these situations.

I regularly discuss ethical methods for accumulating money. I don’t even mention illegal acts or acts that would harm others and I encourage people to put human relationships first when it comes to things like borrowing money or hiring people. At the same time, I also look at ethical ways of spending money, highlighting charities that I personally know are doing good work and being selective on the things one buys for personal enjoyment.

In the end, it all comes back to your ethics and your character. It takes a bad person to intentionally exploit others. I also believe it takes a somewhat (although more debatable because of the various contexts) bad person to refuse to help anyone in need when they have the resources to do it easily without harming themselves in any real way.

Having money isn’t evil. Earning money isn’t evil. Exploiting people to acquire that money is, however, and spending it wantonly in ways that don’t bring value into anyone else’s life is probably also evil (though a bit more muddied).

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Money Is the Root of All Evil

What do you think, is money the root of all evil?

All the Yes points:

The greed caused by pursuit of money is damaging., spiritual damage, there are alternatives to money, family damage, if money was such a good thing then it would serve the people. instead people serve it., money equals a social status, money causes interest, all the no points:, money can be donated to a good cause., some evil clearly nothing to do with money, money is not the root of all evil. the lack of money is the root of all evil., money represents positive value, money is the end product of what you did, originally, money was the solution to the problems(/inefficiencies in transactions) arising out of barter exchange system., money can’t be dispensed with, there’s no such thing as the root of evil, yes because…, no because….

What does greed got to do with money? Even without money, greed still exists.

Money CAN be a good thing but who’s really in control? Do you think you’re in control because, what, you have a good job? You invested in something? Exactly how much control do you have over your own life when all you do is serve pieces of paper and the system that relies on it? I suggest to watch these if you dont know what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWH5TlbloU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXt1cayx0hs

Society often judges people according how much money they have, so money equal status. In some institutions you means nothing if you didn´ t have money.

There are many roots to acts that would be considered evil – I will assume this means actions that harm others or denigrate the self, but the concept of ‘evil’ itself is by no means straightforward – that are nothing to do with money. For instance, a murder might be motivated by anger, a rape by uncontrollable lust, bullying and discrimination by ignorance. You don’t need money to commit a crime. You need a big rock or stick to murder someone. You need the other person not to notice to steal something from someone. Crime has been happening before a monetary system. Religion has also led to a lot of destruction since a long time. Not only this even the greatest of problems dont have their root cause as money.The biggest example being Taliban.Why are they attacking people, they are not getting money from it but it is because they want blood, killing of Indians and Americans. This is called racism. So money is not the root cause of all evil.

Without money they couldn’t have commited the evil crimes. and ya “SOME” evil got nothing 2 do with money but most evil got alot 2 do with money !!!

I respect both sides and I understand why many people believe that money is the root of all evil. But I have to disagree. The lack of money is the root of all evil. Back in the history of mankind, before money was invented, we bartered. Money was the result of hardworking process. Bear in mind that criminals are all born in poverty and some of them live in poverty. The fear of lacking money haunts them constantly. It is the fear of not being able to feed themselves and their families that make them commit unthinkable crimes. If money is evil, could you live in a world without money? If greed or desire is evil, have you ever wanted something that is not yours? Any of you ever want an Iphone? Any of you can live without computer, electricity and all of modern comfort? If you think money is the root of all evil, I’d like to recommend the Communist Manifesto for you. Marx talked about an utopia society in which people work based on their ability and get rewarded base on their needs. Money would not be necessary. I like to ask those who think money is not necessary to point out a successful communist example. Im from a communist, aka socialist, country. And we are moving toward a capitalistic market. I strongly believe that if you dont work for yourself, nobody will. Money motivates people to work harder, smarter. Would there be light bub if Edison work for just bread and milk only? You might say those riches keep getting richer without giving away their money to the poor. I’d like to ask you “Why the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer?” If you find the question somewhat interesting please spend sometimes read the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” It changed a poor college student’s way of thinking, I hope it will be helpful too. Money is not the root of all evil. The lack of money is the root of all evil.

But if there was no money (such as in the case of communism) the lack of it, wouldn’t adversely affect anyone. All the fears you refer to only exist because we need ‘money’ to buy stuff but if there was no money and resources were distributed freely and equally there would be no need for petty cash or even less liquid monetary equivalents. No-one is free of evil/desires, your argument is just as crudely sufficient as saying ‘lying isn’t bad because everyone has done it at some point’. The fact that we sin and/or are tempted to, doesn’t not make it right/good.

To be fair the lack of money is one of the roots of evil. But still money is not the root of all evil :) … Complaint: My opponent is not being clear about his views. … “Now you might argue that lust and the want of possessions is not the same as the want/need of money, but money is a means to that end. “ Imagine no money here in this situation. No money means either you don’t want to ever buy/ sell anything ever in life; withdraw yourself from society n go become a sage (not 99.99% people ever would wanna do it) OR you wanna go back to the days of barter exchange- as for the drawbacks of barter, I’ve briefed on it as a separate point 3 blocks down- check it.

The desperation and greed caused by unlimited wants, unequal distribution of resources and a restrictive means(money) of getting anything. Is the sole and ultimate cause of stress,frustration,anger,rage and thus all crimes. Now you might argue that lust and the want of possessions is not the same as the want/need of money, but money is a means to that end. Everything has a price tag. Everything/person can be bought. If someone won’t marry you because s/he finds you unattractive, you cosmetically/surgically alter your appearance using ‘money’. The one you want does not like your personality : you can change your personality by paying for a course or workshop. Get private investigators, bribe the police, bribe lawyers or hire extremely expensive ones…you can spit in the face of justice/morality. You can get anything and everything. ‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely'[[Lord acton]] Money is power.

It is a great American contribution to world culture, that they have coined the phrase “to make money”. Money is made, by effort of muscle, willpower, and intelect. There can be no society composed entirely of thieves, as there will be no value to steal. Money represents the confidence of parties that the value of their efforts can be traded for the value of others’ efforts. It is a recognition of the importance of society based on trade, rather than the only real alternative: violence. To be clear, money contributed to charity is also traded, for the value of achieving a social goal – this in contrast to taxes, which are forcefully taken.

Were the soviets, who sent the first dog,man and woman into space, devoid of intellect, creativity, willpower, effort, muscle and the rest of it? P.O.A no they were not. The notion that money is the sole motivator is a great fallacy.If the notion were true, social/pro bono/charity work would not exist. Why are there unpaid interns? Why do students pay for courses? you might argue that everything is done to ultimately make money but the point is, making money is not why people are motivated to perform well and outperform others. Some other reasons are recognition,fame,responsibility,habits( being a workaholic) and competition. The need for money is artificially created in a capitalist world. Outside of that universe of discourse, where money is banished and resources are equally and fairly distributed, all the frustration over not having your needs or wants met, would diminish. Having more money than another person is similar to having the ability to cheat him/her. Historical rhetoric propounds: people with higher salaries exploit people who work under them, The rich exploit the poor and so on. It is quite possible to have money without earning it through your own competence. very rich people often inherit it from their family, order other people to make money for them, and then money generates more money through interest rates. people on Income Support get money directly through being unable to make money, although it isn’t really their fault.

Money is the end product of something that you did that you think its enjoyable to you. For example, if someone started invest into a company or firms, it is because of the excitement not because of money. It is the excitement that make people invest and this excitement will leads to the end product, money. Therefore there is no reason to say that money is the root of all evil. Money is just the end product of what you did that excite you

money can be the end product of theft. theft is evil. therefore money is the root of evil. Cozmo — more often people steal for money, pick-pockets, theives, burglars, crazy people. Money CAN be good but most people dont know how to use it so they use it for their own satisfying needs. Cozmo — 90% of crimes are based on money.

Read on the history of money. Originally, Money was the solution to the problems(/inefficiencies in transactions) arising out of barter exchange system. Ex: In barter exchange there had to be a double co-incidence of wants. A man selling milk who wanted to buy rice had to find someone selling rice & wanting milk. GOOD LORD! Just imagine how time-consuming & frustrating. Also, there was a need for a standard to objectively measure the value of all types of goods like cows, milk, foodgrains, clothes, ornaments, etc. Imagine feelings of doubt & being cheated arising out of selling 1 kg rice in exchange of 3 litres milk (when later you met someone offering you 4 litres in exchange for the same value)! Moreover, money is the best & most liquid store of value & has legal tender – so you sue someone legally if cheated. Money solved the problem & also avoided all the confusion. Money is an indispensable part of our lives. Money has to be earned! The root of evil is people who want the unearned money. Saying “MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL” is like blaming your tools; it’s very embarrassing. A similar statement: “Computers (or tech) is a curse.” Ex: You condemn the car for it lead to a terrible accident & you landed up in hospital. So is car the cause of the accident? Or are there other things to consider- like did you repair & maintain it regularly? Why did you buy it? Were you drunk? Were you daydreaming while driving? Did another car hit yours? I’d say that anyone with minimal level of intelligence should get the gist of it & should be in a position to discern the fact that car per se didn’t create the problem. In the accident scene, car was the passive factor while the man driving it was an active factor & another car hitting it was the causal factor. Money too is a passive factor. How you approach it makes all the difference! Just as how you use Internet & Computer decides whether it be a curse or a boon. My smartass opponent may say car was purchased with money- so again money is the root of all evil. Alright then, could you dispense with your car? Could you dispense with anything else having money value? But this is different issue altogether.

see the essence of of what I mean by “money” — anything that is or acts as money i.e. anything that performs the recognized functions of money or serves the recognized purpose of money. I’d quote a definition “Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being intertemporal stores of value, since most monies degrade in value over time through inflation or the overthrow of governments.” Now think– can you do without money? Do you wanna go back to the days for barter system? Imagine no banks, no recognized/ standard medium to transact.

Evil can take different forms & types and also has different causes most of them-psychological.

This allegation is completely wrong. Satan is the root of all evil. Cozmo —Satan is the root of all evil but Satan is also the one who made people use money to do bad deeds. he used people so they can satisfy their own needs however horrible so Satan IS the root of all evil, but also money because if Satan didnt have control over money, we would all use it for good wouldnt we? but noooo… we think its wuch a waste to use so much money on Salvation army blah blah blah… get my point? It’s all Satan’s doing

totally wrong if all criminals are born in poverty why do politicians have so much of it🤣🤣😅

Money is NOT the root cause of ALL evil. The only reason ‘evils’ like world hunger and poverty exist is because of a lack of money so it could be argued that it is the cause, but in reality, did hitler suddenly decide to start a war with the world because of money? No, he didnt, he did it for power. Evil people do evil things and use money to aid them but the money itself is not the cause. Even something as small as a one pound coin can make someone happy. The truth is that different people have different reactions to money, some share, some keep and others use it to cause pain in others but once again its the individuals decision on what he or she would like to do with that money. Other evil deeds are not caused by money, but by the person who decides to cause suffering in others.

totally agree, someone knows what they are talking about😏😑

yes money is d root of all evil my fellow debators has said everythin but I just wanted to add a little point to it d real question is what is money being used for? is it being used for God’s glory? or is it being for pleasure, is it being used for pride, to support dictators, and for the purchase of arms with which to kill people or is it being used for a higher places? when all dis r being answered we c dat money is not used d right way so its because people LOVE money more dan any thin n did is very bad especially as a christain.

no because it is how u see and use money…. and u got used to it… it is in men that made money evil…. it is men who lose control and dont use it properly…. blame yourself…. it is in you…. not the money

Greed cause many problems in this world, but it’s extremely simplistically to take this wise saying at face value. This saying excludes other roots of evil: Love of power, cruelty, psychopathy, obedience, conformity, stupidity, failing to see the significance of our very brief journey on earth.

Money is not the root of all evil, it is the product of evil.

Money is not the root of all evil. To LOVE money IS the root of all evil. That is what you are trying to say.

Money is not the root of evil but money is not the truth. All the resources on planet earth are free to use, nobody owns them. If people stop being selfish and care for each other then we can live in a healthy environment without fear or worries. Well money is a system used to compensate someone for their work they have performed to produce final goods/products rather than barter/ exchange which might create disparities/differences. Social Status, religions that enforce conversion, ethnicity, gender is the root cause of evil, but how did these factors came into play. Let’s find out, people who want easy money and control resources to avoid scarcity, created such differences so that a few may be privileged to enjoy the spoils. That is why wars take place to control resources. The victors take it all and the losers suffer. People who are born in poverty commit crime because people won’t give them a chance to have a decent life. I rather suggest people stop showing off and stop being selfish because of your infidelities. Money can never buy you happiness only temporary satisfaction. Money does not come along with you when you die and money can be destroyed, it just takes seconds. The Ultimate Truth is you want to be remembered for who you are and loved. No Greater joy than being loved and showing compassion.

I like how the ppl who say money is not the root of evil have to support their argument in several elaborate paragraphs (some of which contradict themselves) .

money is the root of all evil u know why society is greedy hungry for money killing each other for it..not only. Money is causing problems in young talents around the world it is restricting young talent from achieving there dream because of fucking money I have talent in racing but cant cause of fucking money..MONEY SHOULD BURN AND EVERTHING SHOULD BE EQUAL AND FREE

The Bible says that “The LOVE of money is the root of all evil”, not that money itself is bad. Even Jesus used money -He told the Pharasies to pay to Ceaser what was his and to God what was His. It’s what people do with money that is the problem, not money itself.

Everything in this material world has a direct impact on our spiritual side. Some more than others. Money has the biggest impact of all. It brings us further into this world and further out of the spiritual world. It is predefined and no one can carry a perception of money that is contrary to the popular concept. Only small children have a more innocent perception, as they do with all things due to their inability to understand.

In other words, the more affected by money a person is, the less spiritual they are. And we often hear people talking against it. But put money in their hands and watch the hypocrisy reveal itself. It’s called temptation. Satan’s number one weapon of choice. No man on Earth is above it. It has been told that only Jesus Christ was an exception to the rule. We are to flee from Sin, not act as if we are invulnerable to it. Money is inherently sinful. And I fully agree 100% with a previous comment that stated that if money was good, it would serve us. But in reality, we serve it. I als noticed a previous comment stating that “lack of” money was the root of all evil. What a silly notion. The only time I heard that before was on an episode of the Jeffersons. Lol. And it is funny in a sad kinda way.

Money has done more wrong than right. Just having it in this world paves the way for needless technology and other pointless things. It enables the greedy to hijack resources for unethical resale or reckless use. Having it around dramatically increases greed which causes crime and disregard. There is absolutely no virtue to be found where money is concerned. The hypocrites in the world send their $5 to charity thinking it helps people. They should instead be getting off their behinds and literally taking money and buying things people need. And then delivering those things in person. TIme and again, charities have been abusing trust and squandering money away. Because at least one person in any organization is greedy enough to take advantage. Even in churches. All people of the Earth stink and cannot measure up to GOD. No matter how hard they try. Because it is in us to do wrong. It is in us to feel proud of ourselves and of others. We worship idols and children, and one another. We devote ourselves to doing good deeds with family and friends, while letting the homeless guy in town rot to the ground. We sit by and watch our communities decay, expecting corrupt politicians to care. Instead, we should be doing something about it. And why do we not?

Because we think its more important to get up, go to work to a 9 to 5 slave job, working for a rich man to help him get richer, while we come home and use that money to give it to another rich man. And we do it over and over again every day. So yes. We are serving money. That is an indisputable fact. And only a person who wears money as a crutch would deny this Truth. I personally have family and friends who wear that crutch. And they are fools. Not wise at all. Hence the reason why the Bible talks about fools more than anything else. It has been told that children are fools. That is true. We can fool a child into anything. And it is extremely important that they be raised with a wise person. For only a wise person can rear a wise child. A fool can only raise a fool. So yes. Not only is it possible for an adult to be a fool. The Earth is full of them! And most are caught up in a cycle of having children and raising their own kids as fools (of course). If the people who call themselves Christians learned to sacrifice and set the example Jesus did, the fools in the world would have something to guide them out of their ignorance. But I see 99.9% of all churchgoers as hypocrites who think Sunday service will save them. GOD cares far more about what happens outside the church. He made us to live life, not hang out in million dollar social clubs, while wearing Christian name tags. Our growing should mostly take place in the Bible itself. Not under the influence of a single misinformed and misled pastor. He is bought and paid for by the church. It is a political institution that keeps itself hidden from the public. And it thrives on money most of all. Jesus didn’t go around begging for money to build a church. He was more likely to pick a big rock to stand on as a place of congregation to draw people to. Nothing fancy. Nothing that costs money. Just a gathering for the Truth to be heard. But today, money is driving the churches. It needs to look a certain way. it needs to suit a hundred purposes outside that of GOD. They play sports. They go on fun trips. They worship food. They act like its a social club. They do absolutely NOTHING for anyone but themselves. A complete falling away of the churches has already happened!!

Jesus had money. But He lived in poverty. The only man who could have money and not use it for himself!! It was strictly used to suit GOD’s purpose in His pursuit to bring others out of society. The good will of others would have made it unnecessary. But money was too precious to them. Saving that last dime was far more important to their own bellies than that of others!! That applies 100% today as well!!

the opposite of empathy (whatever that is) is the root of all evil – if at the moment of evil taking place one stopped and thought “would i want to be on the receiving end of this? no” and therefore stopped their evil doing then there would be a drastic drop in evil if empathy was at the beginning of every thought process humans made. empathy is what should be first taught at school along with learning to talk. money certainly brings evil out of people – it makes people selfish (either for themselves or their particular group/family), it plays with emotions (makes people both happy and sad) and worst of all in my opinion it is the divide that it creates between people with money and people without – that two babies born at exactly the same time, even in the same hospital can have such different upbringings due to money

Wrong and right. You are right about what happens to people when money is around. But you are wrong in the cause. Money doesn’t cause this to happen. It only reveals what is already there. If money caused evil, Jesus would have been corrupted because He had money. The rason it did not affect Him in any ill way is because His entire heart and soul was upon GOD. Something most people fall short of. Many Christians exalt Christ to separate Him from the rest of us. They deny the fact that while He was human, He was one of us. A mortal man. He was a sinless man because of the way He was conceived. And his parents knew the importance of this. Therefore, He was raised to combat Sin in His own life. He was raised truly wise. it wasn’t divinity that gave Him the strength to resist temptation. It was His devotion to GOD. And people have the ability to eradicate their own Sin. They just aren’t doing it. Because the sacrifice is too great for them. Money is the biggest pitfall of all. And until they realize that they need to live a life without it, they will never learn at all. Churches have fallen away because they are led by people who haven’t lived a truly GODly life like Jesus. The Bible is the only true Church in existence. And its right on your coffee table.

Money is damaging because it corrupts people and governments and has been the driving force behind all of the worst man-made disasters in the world. Of course, it is arguable whether money is the root of all evil, but while it could and certainly should be used for good causes, the fact remains that most money simply is not used to help others or the Earht. Instead it has made us greedy and thoughtless. Money is the root of all evil.

-The opinion of Healene Rose

in my point of view evil and world problems started in our problems with scarcity and which cause us to greed to steal and hate and make economy out of war . . haha just guessing.

Money is a root of evil yes, but money is NOT the root of all evil because it says so in the bible. The bible DOES NOT say money is the root of all evil, but, ‘love of money is the root of all evil’.

Whether it is the love of money or it is the money itself that is the root of all evil is of little difference. Without the existence of money, there would not be a love of money. And so the existence of money is a root cause of the love of money. If the love of money is the root of all evil, then so too is money itself.

Certainly it has the same meaning. The Love of Money is another word for GREED. And where there is money, there is greed. A poor person doesn’t see money for very long. It come and goes quickly. They are always behind on paying bills. And its a good thing really. As long as they are pursuing GOD’s wisdom. Otherwise, its only a matter of time until they hit the lottery and become a long term heathen.

Ummm…. You do know why money was created in the first place, right? If there was no money, things would go into chaos, worse than the “chaos” you are talking about. Just think and you will understand.

Shall I refer every one to a book by Any Rand? Atlas Shrugged, on page 412 a character in the book, Señor De Anconia, made a speech about money. He stated that money is the way to show production, is production what you consider evil? “Wealth is the way to show a mans capacity to think.” I agree. Now tell me again, money is evil why? Because we kill each other over it? Could you not also say that the fact that man has the ability to act upon conflict evil? And, in any case, if money truly is evil, what do you suggest what we do about it? How do we fix it?

Fixing it by not using money means barter and charitable sharing within communities. Barter requires a lot of effort in negotiating and having long standing trading relationships. Sharing also requires relationships. We love our money because we don’t require all these relationships. We are able to remain more disconnected from each other, requiring less to have positive reputations as well. But money allows even greater social cost in that money is able to be controlled. Monetary inflation and deflation may be manipulated to extract wealth from the economy and if desired bring nations into conflict. Debts are used to make the masses tenants as in the days of serfdom. Most are enslaved to debt; and debt is the primary means of the creation of money. Debt is only a promise to pay, created from nothing but an agreement and typically agreed upon interest which is usury when ten times financial reserves are lent out at even tiny interest rates. Commodity backed notes are a promise of exchange of a commodity such as gold in exchange for bills. Whether money is created from debt or backed by commodity is of little concern, both debt and commodities can be controlled. In time all of the world becomes controlled by a plutocratic society. One main requirement to gain and maintain control is to be willing to allow or even cause horrible evils.

It is AYN Rand, and she was a complete loon. Atlas Shrugged is possibly the most deluded piece of fiction ever written.

Money is something that we compete for like chips in a game. In game theory John Nash wrote a mathematical proof that when everyone is competing for the same resources the result is a zero sum game. If we continue to compete for money we will use all of earth’s resources. So we should ask the question: ‘Why do we actually need money?’ Most people will answer that it is to advance civilization, develop technologies to make our lives easier or to get people that don’t get along to work together. Ultimately, the answer is to get people to do jobs that they would otherwise not do. Technology has for the most part been stalled by money and caused people to abandon the craft of programming in order to rush something out before someone else make money on it. If you ask anyone in the Free Software Foundation they will tell you that they write code because the enjoy it and work because the need to eat. We all need to stop working so hard to avoid work.

Money is the root of all evil. why is said this because many of the famous stars and people now dying from killing them to take their money and everything they have. if they do not have any money i know there will be no killing and paying others to kill someone for money.

I would rather call it lack of money is the root of all evil. If you don’t have money of course you can easily get bribed,etc.

To LOVE money is the root of all evil. I think that is what you are trying to say.

Blaming money for the cause of all evils prevailing in every field is totally wrong .. Its not the money rather the greediness and dissatisfaction is the only main cause of all evils..

Is Money the Root of All Evil?

Todd christensen.

February 5, 2023

Personal Finance Articles & Topics , Money Management

What does ‘money is the root of all evil’ mean?

The phrase “money is the root of all evil” is a well-known saying that suggests that the love of money or an excessive focus on wealth can lead to negative outcomes, such as greed, selfishness, and unethical behavior.

The actual quote comes from the New Testament of the Bible, specifically 1 Timothy 6:10, which states: “ For the love of money is the root of all evil .”

However, it’s important to note that the phrase “money is the root of all evil” is often misinterpreted to mean that all money or wealth is inherently evil, when in fact the quote specifically refers to the love of money as a potential source of evil.

In essence, the phrase warns against the dangers of prioritizing money over other important values such as honesty, integrity, and compassion, and suggests that focusing too much on accumulating wealth can lead to moral corruption and negative consequences.

Clearing Up Our Relationship with Money

You can hate money or love money, but it’s nearly impossible to be ambivalent about it. Whether you hate credit card debt, love the convenience of debit cards, wish you had more greenbacks, or are tired of working yourself weary for a paycheck, money plays a critical part in human life. With such a starting role in human well-being or misfortune, it’s no wonder money creates such strong emotions and feelings.

While the expression “money is the root of all evil” has a religious origin in the Bible, its sentiment is easily understood across religions and cultures. From anti-capitalist and occupy movements to anti-western societies, the anger over the seeming unfairness of financial matters tends to focus on money.

In the fourth century, St Jerome wrote vehemently against the wealth-accumulating activities of merchants, all but denying any possibility of their acceptance in the eyes of God.

Large-scale frauds make the news regularly while an individual’s long-term, slow-building investments remain private matters. Such media sensationalism colors society’s general feelings about money.

But aside from the history and credos behind our hatred of money, most consumers seem to go through various stages of their relationship with it, from ignorance to fancy, from estrangement and anger to acceptance and partnership.

History of Our Relationship with Money

Humans have an interesting, deep, but often confusing relationship with money. For nearly 3,000 years, since coins were first used in the kingdom of Lydia (much of present-day Turkey), we humans have been able to exchange our work for coins and then exchange those coins for other goods and services.

When compared to the previous monetary system of “gifting and debt,” not only did we have to change the way we thought about what was valuable, but we had to imbue much more collective trust into the process of exchange. Money had to be accepted by all as valuable, not just enforced from above.

Humans aren’t always the most trusting, and when our individual circumstances take a downturn, we often tend to seek fault elsewhere. Economically, that usually involves blaming the system. For three millennia, we have found money a favorite target to blame.

Add to our human tendencies some major religious beliefs that cast a potentially very negative light on money, and money can easily be seen as evil.

In the fourth century AD, the Christian monk, Evagrius Ponticus identified the eight evil thoughts that Pope Gregory I first transformed into the seven deadly sins in the sixth century and which Thomas Aquinas reinforced in the thirteenth century. They are vainglory (pride), avarice (greed), lust, envy, gluttony, wrath (anger), and sloth.

It doesn’t take much to see how money gets involved in most of these sins.

Vainglory or Pride

The more money and riches a person has, the greater danger they have of vainglory and pride. Vainglory requires a comparison of one’s circumstances with those of others to establish a sense of financial or ethical dominance. Such comparisons that involve differences in financial standing are among the easiest to make. Still, it’s not just the wealthy who make such comparisons. Currents of ill feelings toward the “rich” today still flow deeply and often openly. Consider the Occupy Movement of the early 2010s as an example. Based on generalizations rather than individual acquaintances, such divisions create a feeling of moral superiority over the target of one’s comparison.

Avarice or Greed

The relationship between greed and money is obvious. If your goal in life is to have more money, you’ll never have enough. This problem persists today when households make income levels or investment account balances their goals rather than what they can do with those amounts of money.

Sometimes considered as the equal but opposite version of Greed, envy has the potential to lead those without money (or enough of it in their own estimation) to break other laws, such as stealing.

Having more money than necessary to live securely and comfortably might be considered a possible origin of gluttony. Even now, we live in an age of hyper-consumerism because of our general affluence as a society when many households still live in poverty.

Wrath or Anger

Nothing evokes so much emotion as money. We imbue it with so many different meanings, from success, power, influence, and charisma to waste, suffering, deceit, and mistrust. It’s no wonder money is the topic of most arguments in marriages.

Sloth is much more than just being lazy. It insinuates a lack of diligence in many aspects of life, from the spiritual to the physical, from the management of home resources to the care for others. Ironically, sloth is associated with money because it often involves the state of being without the means to care for one’s own needs. Sloth insinuates willful neglect.

For those with extreme standards, sloth suggests that through personal effort, the individual could earn sufficient money to avoid becoming a burden to others. Such views ignore many external, socioeconomic factors that can have negative impacts on a household and an individual.

Money Is Not Evil

Clearly, money can be used for purposes that lead to harming others and dividing families and communities. However, money can also be used for charitable and beneficial purposes.

Money, then, is a tool and not an object with its own will to do evil. Paul clarified that it was the love of money that is the root of evil, not money itself. The two important words Paul used in Greek were philarguria (fondness for silver or money) and oregomenoi (craving). He rightly wrote that loving and craving money for money’s sake was the main concern and not its use to take care of our needs or to do good for others.

Stages of Our Relationship with Money

Even outside the religious context of our relationship with money, many if not most consumers go through a series of stages in which they are introduced to money, experience how it works, and finally learn to use it wisely.

Ignorance of Childhood Surrounding Money

Young children and even many adults in highly sheltered circumstances feel ignorant of how money works. By age two, most children know that an exchange takes place at the checkout stand of most stores because they see money given and goods received.

Still, they remain in the dark as to how the money is earned, where it comes from, how much it’s worth, and how much goods and services cost. When you introduce other forms of payment like debit and credit cards or digital wallets, the child’s ability to understand the checkout exchange becomes even less obvious.

Parents of young, teenage, or even grown adults who think that they are shielding their children by taking care of all their financial obligations only extend this period of financial ignorance. Without understanding the nature and value of money, the individual will remain in a state of financial dependence rather than moving toward independence.

The first and most important step out of ignorance is to understand that we only value money if we exchange something for it. These exchanges usually involve effort and/or time (work), ideas, or assets we care about.

The Fancy of Youth and Money

Often around middle school, youth begin to develop their consumer tastes and behaviors. Around the same time, they often begin to find opportunities to earn money through neighborhood jobs like babysitting and yard work.

Because their needs are generally taken care of by their parent or guardian, such youth find the concept of money intoxicating. They often feel that any money they earn can be spent on fun and pleasure such as toys and games.

As they begin to use debit cards, their sense of pain at having to hand over hard-earned money diminishes, and they further lose any level of restraint that cash purchases provided.

Many young people head off to college and find that they can borrow thousands of dollars each semester to “pay” for their college tuition with nothing more than a filled-out form and a signature promising to repay the debt at some ambiguous future date.

Money, during this stage, seems like a magical and loyal friend who will always be there to help the young person get anything they want.

The Anger of Youth Adulthood toward Money

As young adults begin experiencing many of the negative consequences of mismanaging money, they may swing their view of money from fancy to anger. Late fees resulting from overextended credit cards lead to frustration. Defaulting on student loan payments can lead to feelings of powerlessness and even vulnerability.

When poor credit card behavior leads to poor credit ratings, young adults (and older) can feel like money has become a barrier between them and their goals in life. Qualifying for a loan to purchase a home or start a business becomes impossible with a low credit score.

In such circumstances, you might quickly change your opinion about money from favorable to even spiteful. Although there are situations when an individual finds themselves in very difficult financial situations for reasons beyond their own control, many people who feel angry about money (or the lack thereof) find it easier to accept a victim mentality. If they can blame someone else (the system, the rich, the politicians, the government, etc.), they don’t have to come to terms with their own ineffective or even harmful behavior in the past.

Accepting Money as a Tool

Until the individual accepts their own role in their financial situation (free of the external influences noted previously), he or she will remain in a state of frustration and anger when it comes to money. Unfortunately, many adults remain in this state of anger for their entire lives.

Only after recognizing your own role in your personal finances can you begin to make changes to your beliefs and your behaviors that will result in better outcomes. Identifying habits that need adjustments lead to increased effectiveness in managing money.

This acceptance of your personal responsibility to make a difference in your own financial life will naturally lead to the next and highest stage of our relationship with money.

Partnership

The highest form of human relationship with money is a partnership. It means that you accept money as a tool to help you achieve your life’s goals rather than seeing it as an object to desire.

As with any tool, money can be used for good or for harm. It can help you build something or destroy something.

Once you see money as a tool, you will naturally want to acquire and build the skills necessary to use it more effectively. This will include reading about money, listening to podcasts about money, watching videos about money, and having conversations with mentors and others about the topic. Then, you will practice using money.

When you learn to drive a car, you start by studying for and passing a test about the rules of the road. In no way does that qualify you as a good driver. Next, you either enroll in a driver’s education course or sign up with a driving school program, both of which will give you hours of practice behind the wheel under the guidance of a certified and skilled instructor. Even those who forgo such training programs need to spend time behind the wheel and will likely make a mistake here or there.

The same goes for our partnership with money. We will make mistakes and may even cause or be involved in accidents from time to time. But, the more mindful we are with our money, the more skilled we become at using it.

The Good of Money

Too many people do too much good with money to call it evil. Beyond the personal effects money has on the person who possesses it, that individual can use the money for good in her or his home, neighborhood, city, state, country, or around the world.

To be sure, wealthy individuals of questionable character have long made major donations to good causes for various reasons, including attempts to clean up their own poor reputations.

Is the good done in communities and for households by causes diminished? While outsiders can easily say the money is tainted, beneficiaries of the good works generally care less about the source and more about the actions made possible with the donations.

The generosity of means and the power of financial donations permit nonprofits to relieve suffering, address affordable housing, provide the hungry with food, and offer training and services to those in need.

To sum up, while the value of money is found in what we are willing to exchange for it, the power of money is in its usage.

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260 Money Topics to Write About & Essay Examples

Looking for a topic about money? Money won’t leave anyone indifferent! There are lots of money essay topics for students to explore.

🏆 Best Money Essay Examples & Ideas

👍 good money essay topics, 💡 easy money topics to write about, 📃 interesting topics about money, 📑 good research topics about money, 📌 most interesting money topics to write about, ❓ research questions about money.

You might want to focus on the issue of money management or elaborate on why money is so important nowadays. Other exciting topics for a money essay are the relation between money and love, the role of money in education, etc. Below you’ll find a list of money topics to write about! These ideas can also be used for discussions and presentations. Money essay examples are a nice bonus to inspire you even more!

Can Money Buy You Happiness? First of all, given that happiness is related to the satisfaction of personal needs, there is also a need to consider the essential need of human life such as housing, medicine, and food.
Connection Between Money and Happiness Critical analysis of money-happiness relationship shows that socioeconomic factors determine the happiness of an individual; therefore, it is quite unsatisfactory to attribute money as the only factor and determinant of happiness.
I Don’t Believe Money Can Buy Happiness This shows that as much as money is essential in acquisition and satisfaction of our needs, it does not guarantee our happiness by its own and other aspects of life have to be incorporated to […]
Money, Happiness and Relationship Between Them The research conducted in the different countries during which people were asked how satisfied they were with their lives clearly indicated the existence of a non-linear relationship between the amount of money and the size […]
Money as a Form of Motivation in the Work Place This then shows that money can and is used as a motivational factor in the work place so that employees can strive to give their best and their all at the end of the day.
Money: Good or Evil? Comparing & Contrasting While there are those amongst us who subscribe to the school of though that “money is the source of all evil”, others are of the opinion that money can buy you anything, literary.
Strategies to Save and Protect Money Thus, the main points of expenditure will be clearly marked, which will help to exclude the purchase of unnecessary goods and services.
Does Money Buy Happiness? Billions of people in all parts of the world sacrifice their ambitions and subconscious tensions on the altar of profitability and higher incomes. Yet, the opportunity costs of pursuing more money can be extremely high.
Should America Keep Paper Money It is possible to begin the discussion of the need for keeping paper currency from referring to the rights of any people.
The Global Media Is All About Money and Profit Making It is noteworthy that the advertisement are presented through the media, which confirms the assertion that global media is all about money and profit making. The media firms control the information passed to the public […]
Money and Modern Life The rich and the powerful are at the top while the poor and helpless are at the bottom, the rest lie in-between.
Discussion: Can Money Buy Happiness? Reason Two: Second, people are psychologically predisposed to wanting more than they have, so the richer people are, the less feasible it is to satisfy their demands.
Time Value of Money: Importance of Calculating Due to fluctuations in economies, all organizations need to take into consideration concepts of the time value of money in any investment venture.
Relation Between Money and Football In the English league, clubs have been spending millions to sign up a player in the hope that the player will turn the fortunes of the company for the good.
Opinion on the Importance of Money In the absence of money, individuals and organizations would be forced to conduct transactions through barter trade which is a relatively challenging system due to existence of double coincidence of wants.
Why People Should Donate Time, Money, Energy to a Particular Organization, Charity, or Cause Its vision is to have a world that is free from Alzheimer’s disease.”The Alzheimer’s Association is the leading, global voluntary health organization in Alzheimer’s care and support, and the largest private, nonprofit funder of Alzheimer’s […]
Anti-Money Laundering and Hawala System in Dubai To prevent money launders and agents, most countries enacted the anti-money laundering acts with the goal of tracking and prosecuting offenders.
Money or Family Values First? Which Way to Go As such, family values becomes the epicenter of shaping individual behavior and actions towards the attainment of a certain good, while money assumes the position of facilitating the attainment of a certain good such as […]
Anti Money Laundering and Financial Crime There are a number of requirements by the government on the AML procedures to be developed and adopted by the firms in the financial service in industry in an attempt to fight the illegal practice.
Money Laundering: Most Effective Combat Strategies The practice of money laundering affects the economy and security of a country. Countries have directed their efforts to curb money laundering to control the downwards projections of their countries’ economies.
Why Money Is Important: Benefits & Downsides The notion originated from the Bible because the person who made Jesus suffer on the cross was enticed by the love of money to forsake Jesus.
Money, Happiness and Satisfaction With Life Nonetheless, the previously mentioned examples should be used to remind us that money alone is not a guarantee of happiness, satisfaction with life, and good health.
Money and Its Value Throughout the World History What is important is the value that people place on whatever unit they refer to as amoney.’ Money acts as a medium of exchange and an element of measurement of the value of goods and […]
Electronic Money: Challenges and Solutions First of all, it should be pointed out that money is any type of phenomenon which is conventionally accepted as a universal carrier of value, or “any generally accepted means of payment which is allowed […]
Drugs: The Love of Money Is the Root of All Evils The political issues concerning the use of drugs consist of, but not limited to, the substances that are defined as drugs, the means of supplying and controlling their use, and how the society relates with […]
Efforts to Raise Money for Charity However, the point is that charity is supposed to be for a simple act of giving and not expecting any returns from it.
Money and Happiness in Poor and Wealthy Societies Comprehending the motivations for pursuing money and happiness is the key to understanding this correlation. The Easterlin paradox summed this view by showing that income had a direct correlation with happiness.
Success and Money Correlation The development of the information technologies and the ongoing progress led to the reconsideration of the values and beliefs. It is significant to understand that there is no right or wrong answer for the question […]
Dreams of Avarice in Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money” The chapter “Dreams of Avarice” of the book “The Ascent of Money” explores different stages of development of money functioning in the world by relating them to corresponding historical events.
Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream – Movie Analysis It can be taken as the national ethos of the citizens of the USA. The basis of the American society is broken and it is not united anymore.
Money Saving Methods for College Students A budget is one of the methods that a college student can use to save money. In the budget, one should indicate how much to save and the means of saving the money.
Edwin Arlington Robinson: Money and Happiness in “Richard Cory” It is evident that money cannot guarantee happiness in one’s life due to the uncertainties that surround each one of us.
Change in the Value of Money According to Keynes To explain the effect of inflation on investors, Keynes delves into the history of inflation through the nineteenth century and tries to explain the complacency of investors at the beginning of the First World War […]
Money Laundering Through Cryptocurrencies This study will try to critique the approaches used by countries to address the aspect of money laundering activities and the risks posed by digital currencies.
Money and Banking: General Information The essay gives the definition of money and gives a brief description of the functions of money. As a store of value, money can be saved reliably and then retrieved in the future.
Two Attitudes Towards Money The over-dependence on money to satisfy one’s emotional needs is a negative perspective of money. The positive attitude of money is rarely practiced by people.
The Lebanese-Canadian Bank’s Money Laundering The bank was later banned from using the dollar by the American treasury; this resulted in the collapse and eventual sale of the bank.L.C.B.had to pay a settlement fine of one hundred and two million […]
Giving Money to the Homeless: Is It Important? The question of whether a person should give money to a homeless person or not is a complicated one and cannot have the right answer.
Where Does the Money Go? by Bittle & Johnson Therefore, the authors explain key issues of the national debt in a relatively simple language and provide their opinion on how the country got into that situation and what could be done about it. In […]
Anti-Money Laundering in Al Ansari Exchange Case Study Details Company name: Al Ansari Exchange Headquarters: Dubai, United Arab Emirates Sector: Financial Services Number of employees: 2500 Annual gross revenue: UAED 440.
“From Empire to Chimerica” in “The Ascent of Money” In the chapter “From Empire to Chimerica,” Niall Ferguson traces back the history of the Western financial rise and suggests that nowadays it is being challenged by the developing Eastern world. The hegemonic position of […]
Paper Money and Its Role Throughout History The adoption of the paper money was considered to be beneficial for both the wealth of the country and the individual businessmen.
Artworks Comparison: Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Tribute Money Though the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a fresco created by Picasso, was created in an entirely different epoch than Masaccio’s Tribute Money was, the two artworks still share a range of stylistic, compositional and conceptual similarities, […]
Money, Success, and Relation Between Them In particular, the modern generation attaches so much importance to money in the sense that success and money are presumed to be one and the same thing.
The Relationship Between Money Supply and Inflation It is evidenced that changing the money supply through the central banks leads to a control of the inflationary situations in the same economy.
Prices Rise When the Government Prints too Much Money Makinen notes that an increase in the supply of money in an economy relative to the output in the economy could lead to inflationary pressure on prices of goods and services in the economy.
Money: Evolution, Functions, and Characteristics It acts as medium of exchange where it is accepted by both buyers and sellers; the buyer gives money to the seller in exchange of commodities.
Money Laundering Scene in Police Drama “Ozark” In one of the first season’s episodes, Marty, the main character, illustrates the process of money laundering crime. In the scene, one can see that Marty is fully sane and is committing a crime voluntarily.
Money From the Christian Perspective Work in Christian missions is a business and since it affects the relationship between the missionary and the people he is trying to reach, missionary funding is essential.
Business Case Scenario: Missing Money in a Company A possible scenario explaining how money is missing is through the payroll department my first argument seeks to prove the payroll department as the loophole of the company’s misfortunes.
Sports Stadiums’ Funding by Public Money The issue is controversial from an ethical point of view since not all citizens whose taxes can be spent on the construction of the stadium are interested in or fond of sports.
Money Laundering: The Kazakhgate Case He was accused of breaking the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1974 and money laundering by the U.S.attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
The Ways Terrorists Raise and Move Money Moreover, the government has put into action the freezing orders and blocking of united states individuals who are presumed to have a hand in terrorist activities.
“Money as a Weapon” System and Fiscal Triad Furthermore, the fiscal triad encompasses the procurement of products and services and the disbursement and accounting of public funding. Fiscal legislation and contracts are two key components of the “money as a weapon” system.
The Fiscal Triad and Money as a Weapon System The reliance on the unit commanders sparked the development of the complementary strategy, “Money as a Weapon System,” which became a focal point of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.
Saving Money Using Electric or Gas Vehicles The central hypothesis of the study is that the electric car will save more money than gas ones. The main expected outcome that the study is counting on is a confirmation of the presented hypothesis […]
Traditional vs. Modern Forms of Money The most significant argument for the continuing existence of traditional forms of money is the impossibility of converting all financial resources into a digital form.
Time Value of Money: What You Should Know The time value of money is a paramount financial concept, according to which a certain amount is now worth more than the same amount in the future.
The Concept of the Time Value of Money The concept of the time value of money refers to the financial principle noting that a fixed amount of money currently is worth more than the same amount of money in the future.
Play Money Paper: A Report Betas of the Companies in the Portfolio It is noteworthy that in the given portfolio, the beta indices of the companies involved vary considerably.
Integration of Business Ethics in Preventing Money Laundering Schemes The shipping information within the document seems inaccurate with the intention to launder money from the buyer. The contribution of ocean carrier in the transaction process is doubtful to a given extent.
Trade-Based Money Laundering The purpose of this paper is to research the subject of trade-based money laundering, its impact on global scene and export controls, identify types of trade finance techniques used to launder illegal money, and provide […]
Impact of Natural Disasters on Money Markets and Investment Infusion of funds from the central bank during natural disasters results in higher process of exports as a direct result of an increase in the value of the local currency.
The Perception of Money, Wealth, and Power: Early Renaissance vs. Nowadays In the Renaissance period, power was a questionable pursuit and could be viewed as less stable due to more frequent upheavals.
Financial Institutions and Money Money is a store of value because it can be saved now and used to purchase se goods and services in the future.
Researching of the Time Value of Money After receiving the loan, one of the monetary policies that would help PIIGS to stabilize is the deflation of their currency, in this case, the Euro.
Anti-Money Laundering: Financial Action Task Force Meanwhile, given the limited access for physical assessment of state jurisdictions, it is likely that current provisions of FATF are yet to be revised in spite of pandemic travel and assessment restrictions.
Anti-Money Laundering in the UK Jurisdiction The regime adopted in the UK is based on the provisions of “the Terrorism Act of 2000, the Proceeds of Crime Act of 2002, as well as the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Transfer of […]
Trade-Based Money Laundering and Its Attractiveness The proliferation of the trade-based money laundering is directly related to the growing complexity of international trade systems, where new risks and vulnerabilities emerge and are seen as favorable among terrorist organizations seeking for the […]
Money Laundering and Sanctions Regulatory Frameworks Under the provisions of OFAC, the company has violated the cybersecurity rules that might indirectly bring a significant threat to the national security or the stability of the United States economy by engaging in online […]
Type Borrowing Money: Margin Lending In the defense of the storm financial planning firm, BOQ submitted to the authorities that in view of banking regulatory policies, storm had not contravened any of the policies and this is the reason why […]
Lessons on Financial Planning Using Money Tree Software Financial planning remains a fundamental function among the investors in coming up with a method of using the finances presently and in the future.
The Supply of Money in the Capitalist Economy In the capitalist economy that the world is currently based on, the supply of money plays a significant role in not only affecting salaries and prices but also the growth of the economy.
Time Value of Money Defined and Calculations Simply put, the same value of money today is worth the same value in future. The time value of money can therefore be defined as the calculated value of the money taking into consideration various […]
Money Tree Software: Financial Planning This return is important because: It represents the reward the business stakeholders and owner of the business get in staking their money on the business currently and in the future It rewards the business creditors […]
Money Management: Investment on Exchange-Traded Funds The essay will discuss the possibility of investing in a number of selected ETFs in connection to an investment objective of an individual.
What Is Money Laundering and Is It Possible to Fight It Certainly and more often money involved in laundering is obtained from illegal activities and the main objective of laundering is to ‘clean’ the dirty money and give it a legitimate appearance in terms of source.
Time Value of Money: Choosing Bank for Deposit The value of the money is determined by the rate of return that the bank will offer. The future value of the two banks is $20,000 and $22,000 for bank A and bank B respectively.
How Money Market Mutual Funds Contributed to the 2008 Financial Crisis While how the prices of shares fell below the set $1 per share was a complex process, it became one of the greatest systemic risks posed by the MMMF to the investors and the economy […]
Time Value of Money From an Islamic Perspective Islamic scholars say that the time value of money and the interest rates imposed on money lent are the reasons why the poor keep on getting poor and the rich richer.
Rational Decision Making: Money on Your Mind The mind is responsible for making financial decision and it is triggered by the messages we receive on the day to day activities. Lennick and Jordan explain that, we have two systems in the brain; […]
A Usability Test Conducted on GE Money.com.au It is common knowledge that the easier it is to access services and products on a given website the more likely users will be encouraged to come back.
“Most Important Thing Is Money Ltd”: Vaccination Development Thus, necessary powers have been vested with the Secretary of State for Health in England, through the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation to enforce such preventive steps, through necessary programs that […]
Money Investments in the Companies and Bonds The stock volume is on the low level now, about 30, but it is connected with the crisis in the world and the additional investment may support the company and increase it. In general the […]
Money Management in the Organization There is a much debate on the issue and several people an financial experts do analyze the historical perspectives of the Active vs Passive money management.
How the Virus Transformed Money Spending in the US In the article featured in the New York Times, Leatherby and Geller state that the rate at which people spend their money has rapidly decreased due to the emergence of the virus in the United […]
The Role of Money and Class Division in Society The image of modern American society tries in vain to convey the prevalence of personality over social division. Americans’ perception of financial status has been shaped for years by creating the notion of the “American […]
Money and American Classes in 1870-1920 Wherein, the time of the stock market emergence was the time of the ongoing “carnival,” where the mystical power of money transferred to miraculous products and medicines and compelling advertisements.
The Ascent of Money – Safe as Houses Looking from a broad historical perspective, Niall Ferguson devotes the chapter “Save as Houses” to the observation of the real estate concept transformation, describes the place of the real estate market in the economic systems […]
The Ascent of Money – Blowing Bubbles The price for a share tells how much people rely on the cost of the company in the future. The life of a stock market represents the reflection of human moods on the price of […]
Canada’s Role in the History of Money: The Relationship Between Ownership and Control Individuals with the predominant shares gain the directorship of the wealth production channels and as such gain control of the diversified owners.
Why Non-Monetary Incentives Are More Significant Than Money It is important to recognize that both monetary and non-monetary incentives, otherwise known as total rewards, are offered to employees in diverse ways for purposes of attracting and motivating them to the ideals of the […]
To Make Money or Serve the Society? However, when the issue of the corporation to serve the society arises, then it kind of compromises the main focus of the corporation, which is to make money. These have been the major causes of […]
Money Role in Macro Economy The dollar is till now the most accepted currency in the world and this dollar fluctuation that has been caused by the worst recession in American history since the time of the Great Depression is […]
Two Attitudes Toward Money Two attitudes toward money involve negative perception of money as universal evil and positive perception of money as source of good life and prosperity.
Organizational Communication & the “Money” Aspect While the use of this information is critical for both ensuring survival of the organization and being a frontrunner in its strategies for the future, there are large boulders in use of this information effectively, […]
Tax Money Usage on Military Spending Issue The fact that America won the Cold War and defeated the Soviets is taken as a vindication by the American leaders of the need to continue military spending.
Money Makes You Happy: Philosophical Reasoning It is possible to give the right to the ones who think that money can buy happiness. This conclusion is not accepted by psychologists who think that wealth brings the happiness only in the moment […]
“Who Says Money Cannot Buy Happiness” by Lee Investment is a production process for will it bring about goods and services that can be sold to the market and in the process, the owner of the business makes some profit.
Technical Analysis as Active Money Management Method Technical analysis is the financial markets methodology that asserts the capability to foretell the probable course of security charges by the means of past market data study, principally price and volume.
Spare Change: Giving Money to the “Undeserving Poor” To address the central theme of the article, one need to delve deeper into the psyche of giving alms and money to the poor people we meet on the street.
The Use of Money in Business Practices Money is seen as the cause of problems and especially in the minds of emerging market respondents. Through this they can pick up groceries for the old in their neighborhood and make money from this.
Money Laundering and Terrorist Finance However, the balance money after the sham gambling is transferred to another ordinary bank account, thereby creating a legal status for the laundered money as if it has come from gambling and will be employed […]
City Planning. Too Much Money: Why Savings Are Bad The scenario is that the expected growth in economies where the rate of savings is high has not shown a corresponding increase in growth rate also.
Debates in Endogenous Money: Basil Moore The value of the currency was determined by the value of the precious metal used to mint the currency. From the time Federal Reserve took control of money and credit, economic consistency is attained by […]
Money and Banking. Financial Markets The essay will examine the essence and the importance of the above-mentioned financial phenomena and see how their interrelation, especially in the negative context, can influence the state of things in society.
Money and Justice: High-Profile Cases It is estimated that thousands of persons bracketed in the ‘poor’ sector of society go to jail annually in the United States without having spoken to a lawyer.
Accounting for Public Money After Railway Privatization There were very many problems prior to the railway privatization in 1990.one of the problems that led to the privatization of the railway line in the UK was the misappropriation of taxpayers’ money.
Time Value of Money and Its Financial Applications The time value of money refers to the idea that money available at the present time is worth more than the same amount in the future, due to its potential earning capacity.
Time Value of Money in Examples Therefore, re-purchase of the shares appeals to the managers of the company because it will allow the company uses the money to regenerate more money for the purpose of repurchase the shares in the future.
Wall Street Managers: The Art of Making Money In the end, the goal of Wall Street managers is to ensure optimal returns in all of their investments. The evolution of Wall Street managers is etched in the history of financial markets.
Money Laundering in the USA and Australia The International Money Fund has established that the aggregate size of money laundering in the World is approximately four percent of the world’s gross domestic product.
Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and Voltaire’s Candide’s Value on Money Both written at a time when philosophers had started questioning the relevance of capitalism and the concept of wealth creation, it is evident that the two authors were keen on explaining the power of money […]
The Concept of Money Laundering The first issue I have learned is that the main problem lies in the presence of Big Data that includes trillions of transactions of various financial organizations and systems.
Fraud, Money Laundering, and Terrorism Financing After the audacious attack by Al-Qaeda and the destruction of the Twin Towers on 11th of September 2001, terrorism was declared the number one enemy to the peace and stability of the modern world.
Time Value of Money – Preparing for Home Ownership The purchase price of the house is determined by using the following formula in Excel. 66 The down payment is 20% of the future value of the house, i.e, $40,278.13.
Martin Van Buren: Money and Indian Relocation One of the reasons for such collaboration and understanding is the focus on the values we have. I believe this path will bring us to the land we all would like to live in.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money Money is a determinant of the propensity to consume; hence, the more money one makes, the more that he or she consumes and the converse is the case.
The Practice of Saving Money Knowledge of the language is also a very crucial component of EAP as it aids the learner in understanding questions and responding to them in their examinations.another differentiating factor between the two varieties of English […]
Money Market and Value-Based Pricing Consequently, the GDP can be defined by the equation: Y=C+I+G+NX where: Y= Total GDP, C=Consumption by household, I=Investment, G=Government expenditure, NX=Net Exports Net Domestic product entails the reduction of the GDP by the depreciation of […]
How Money Markets Operate? Furthermore, only free markets have shown the resilience that is necessary to accompany the fluctuations in demand and supply of the money markets.
Access Right to Money: Sculpture Theft Among the suspects, there are those in dire need of the money due to financial problems, while others need the values worth of the item and not the actual monetary price attached to the item.
History of Money in Spain The production of coins melted from gold also ceased in the year 1904, with the production of that melted from silver ceasing in the year 1910.
Money Flows and Financial Repression in the US and China From the article, the authors depict how the interest rates in developed countries like the United States compare with those of the emerging markets such as China, India, and Brazil.
Management: “Marketplace Money” and “Undercover Boss” In this case, the accents are made on the support of the healthy workforce in order to guarantee the better employees’ performance and on the idea of rewards as the important aspects to stimulate the […]
Money Compensation for Student-Athletes Besides, sports are highly lucrative for colleges, and students whose labor brings the revenues should share the part of them not to lose the interest in such activities.
Chapters 1-3 of “Money Mechanics” by David Ashby The retained amount of money in the commercial bank is the primary reserve. The banks can decide to reduce their working reserve, and the money obtained is transferred to the excess reserve fund in accounts […]
Banking in David Ashby’s “Money Mechanics” Changes in prices may not have a direct effect on the gross domestic product and the planned expenditures because this is determined by the money that is in supply. This causes the GDP and prices […]
Karl Marx on Commodities, Labor, and Money Division of labour is very important in the production of commodities. The use-value of each commodity contains useful labour.
The UAE Against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing This valuation of the anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism government of the United Arab Emirates is founded on the forty endorsements and the nine special commendations on extremist supporting of the monetary […]
UAE Anti-Money Laundering Laws and Their Benefits The legal maintenance of counteraction to the legalization of criminal incomes is carried out by means of a system of laws and regulations, controlling financial, bank, and customs relations and establishing the order of licensing […]
Money, Their Features, Functions and Importance The first hindrance is the inability of the household to monitor the activities of firms. In this case, it is used to state the value of debt.
Happiness Without Money in Sociology and Psychology The tendency’s mechanics are simple – being in the possession of any substantial sum of money increases a person’s chance to secure a dominant status within the society, which in turn will result in strengthening […]
Money Market Development Factors The money market is one of the fundamental elements in the functioning of any state. Under these conditions, the gradual rise of technologies and their implementation in the sphere of financial operations alter the money […]
“God’ Money is Now My Money” by Stanley Seat It could be said that different priorities and the lack of time for supervision of the employees are the critical reasons for the violation of rules and high frequency of fraud in the religious institutions […]
International Money Laundering Thus, money laundering has a profound impact on the state of the global economy, as well as on the economy of the U.S.
Cybercrime and Digital Money Laundering The result of the investigation was the indictment of Western Express and a number of the company’s clients for several charges including stolen credit card data trafficking and money laundering.
Hawala Remittance System: Anti-Money Laundering Compliance The existence and operation of money remittance systems is one of the primary features of developing economic relation at all scales from local to the global ones.
Time Value of Money in Economies of Scale Also, the investigation of the VoF becomes easier by means of scrutinizing the tradeoff between the TVM and the EoS. The TVM is also employed to reach the integration of infrastructure investment valuation and risk […]
Time Value of Money in Investment Planning The author of the post makes a good point that an amount of money is worth more the sooner it is received.
David Leonhardt: May Be Money Does Buy Happiness After All The case study of Japanese citizens that support Easterlin paradox do not factor in the confounding psychological effects of the Second World War on the entire population and the country.
Illegal Drug Use, Prostitution and Money Laundering Upon discussing the impact of money laundering, illegal drugs, and prostitution, the paper proposes the issuing of a court order restraining the use of wealth acquired from victimless crimes as one of the approaches to […]
Getting Beyond: Show Me the Money Nevertheless, underpayment and overpayment are common, leading to dissatisfaction. Notably, compensation is part culture, but analytics will gain traction in the big data era, as start-ups leverage such advantages from experts to manage a sales […]
Space Programs: Progress or Waste of Money? According to Ehrenfreund, the ingenuity to develop technologies and work in space is part of the progress that comes from space programs. Space programs have led to the development of technologies that improve air transport.
“The Money Machine: How the City Works” by Coggan The media plays a chief role in educating the public concerning the various financial matters that affect the undertakings of the City.
Money Evolution in Ancient Times and Nowadays In the means to defining what money is, most of the scholars from the psychological and physiological field have come up with the theoretical aspects of money and the ways it influences the economic growth […]
Fraud and Crime Theory in the “Black Money” Movie The movie shows the irregularities involved in the acquisition of arms for the Saudi government. The movie is a perfect display of the international crimes and financial fraud that has been on the rise in […]
Mercantilism, Stamped Money, and Under-Consumption It is paramount to note that he criticizes ideas of Ricardo quite frequently, and he believed that he did not consider the ideas that were suggested by other prominent economists.
Money Evolution in the 21st Century and Before The history of the world cannot be described effectively without identifying the function of money. Money has been used to measure the value of resources and financial markets.
Financial Crisis in Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money” By Ferguson, the main purpose of the historian is to relieve humanity from the financial illusions on the examples of the past.
Monetary Policy in “The Ascent of Money” by Ferguson The rise of Babylon is closely linked to the evolution of the concept of debt and credit; without bond markets and banks, the brilliance of the Italians would not have materialized; the foundation of the […]
The Airtel Money Service: Indian and African Paths When comparing the Indian and African paths in introducing the service, the first difference that arises is the main user of the service as in the case of India, it was the lower middle class.
Money History, Ethical and Social Standarts
World Money History in the 20th Century and New Objects of Value
Locke’s Work on Interest and Value of Money
Money in the “Sheriff of Cape Breton” Case Study
Medieval England in “Treatise on the New Money”
Blowing Bubbles in Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money”
Treatise on the New Money: Document Analysis
Human Bondage in Ferguson’s “The Ascent of Money”
Money History, Bonds, Market Bubbles, and Risks
Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
Deflation in the Quantity Theory of Money
Money, Its Purpose and Significance in History
“Who Stole the Money, and When?” by Greenberg
Money History From the Middle Ages to Mercantilism
Money Development From 600 BC to Nowadays
Money Development and Its Stages in World History
Market Society in “What Money Can’t Buy” by Sandels
Employee Theft in “Who Stole the Money, and When?”
European Union Anti-Money Laundering Directive
T-Shirts “SENIOR 2016” and Time Value of Money
Time and Money in “Neptune’s Brood” by Charles Stross
“College Is a Waste of Time and Money” by Bird
Virgin Money Company’s Business Model in Canada
Money in History and World Cultures
Is College Education Worth the Money
Weddings, Marriage, and Money in the UAE
Money and Happiness Connection – Philosophy
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
“Art for Money’s Sake” by William Alden
Money’s and Banking’ Concepts
Central Bank of Bahrain and Money Supply Regulation
Psychological Research: Money Can Buy Happiness
Finance: The History of Money
Finance in the Book “The Ascent of Money” by Niall Ferguson
Criminal Law: Blood Money From the Human Organs Sale
Money as an Emerging Market Phenomenon
Cyber-Crime – New Ways to Steal Identity and Money
The Case of Stolen Donation Money
Time Value of Money
Money and Banking: The Economic Recession of 2007
Money and Banking: David S. Ashby’s Perspective
Christian Moral Teaching and Money
Money and Capital Markets: Turkey, India and China
Money and Capital Markets: Central Banks
Exploring the Relationship Between Education and Money
Anti Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism
Mobile Money Transfer as an Alternative Product for Vodafone Group Plc
UK and USA During the Period 2000-2010: Consumer Price Index, Unemployment Rate, Money Supply and Interest Rate
Are Workers Motivated Mainly by Money?
Money Mechanics in the U.S.
Money and Markets vs. Social Morals
Money Laundering In Saudi Arabia
Inflation Tax – Printing More Money to Cover the War Expenses
Banks and the Money Supply
Money Mechanics in Banks System
Money Laundering In Russia
Money and Work Performance
Sports and Money in Australia
Money Supply and Exchange Rates
Mobile Money Transfer Service
Central Banking and the Money Supply
The Different Roles Played By the Central Bank, Depository Institutions, and Depositors in the Determination of Money Supply
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx: The Role of Money in Human Life
How Saudi Banks Deal With Money Laundery
The Ascent of Money
Niall Ferguson’s ‘The Ascent of Money’
Role of Money in the American Dream’s Concept
Money, Motivation and Employee Performance
Money and Commodity Circulatory Processes
Motivate Your Employees produced by BNet Video for CBS Money Watch
We Should Use Tax Money to Enforce Mandatory Drug Treatments on Drug
The World Surrounded by Money
The World of Money
Federal Reserve; Money and Banking
Ways to Spend Money in Saudi Arabia
Sports Industry: Morality vs. Money
Making Money on Music: The Company That Has to Stay Afloat
Federal Reserve and the Role of Money in It
What Do Money and Credit Tell Us About Actual Activity in the United States?
What Influence Does Money Have on Us Politics?
Can Money Change Who We Are?
Does Government Spending Crowd Out Donations of Time and Money?
Does More Money Mean More Bank Loans?
Are Corporate Ceos Earning Too Much Money?
Did the Turmoil Affect Money-Market Segmentation in the Euro Area?
How Appealing Are Monetary Rewards in the Workplace?
How Does Inflation Affect the Function of Money?
Can Banks Individually Create Money Out of Nothing?
Are Credit Cards Going to Be the Money of the Future?
Does Money Protect Health Status?
Can Cryptocurrencies Fulfill the Functions of Money?
What Tools Used by the Federal Reserve to Control Money Supply?
Are Athletes Overpaid Money Professional Sports?
Does Electronic Money Mean the Death of Cash?
What Does Motivate Employees and Whether Money a Key?
What Are the Three Functions of Money?
Are Gym Memberships Worth the Money?
Does Broad Money Matter for Interest Rate Policy?
Does Money Help Predict Inflation?
Does One’s Success Depend on the Amount of Money a Person Earns?
How Does Federal Reserve Control the Money Supply?
Does Interest Rate Influence Demand for Money?
Does Commodity Money Eliminate the Indeterminacy of Equilibria?
Are College Degrees Worth the Money?
Can Money Matter for Interest Rate Policy?
How Banks Create Money and Impact of Credit Booms?
How Can Virtualization Save Organization Money?
Can Money Diminish Student Performance Disparities Across Regions?
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Essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil

Students are often asked to write an essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil

Introduction.

Money is a vital tool in our lives. It helps us buy goods, services and secures a comfortable life. But, it’s often said that “Money is the root of all evil.”

Money and Evil

The phrase doesn’t mean money itself is evil. Rather, it’s the love of money that can lead to evil actions. People may lie, cheat, or steal for money, causing harm to others.

So, it’s not money, but the misuse of it that causes evil. We must learn to use money wisely, ensuring it benefits us without causing harm.

250 Words Essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil

The saying “Money is the root of all evil” is a phrase that incites much debate. It is a statement that has been used to critique and analyze the societal obsession with wealth and monetary gain.

Money: A Tool or a Master?

Money, in its essence, is a tool for exchange that facilitates trade and economic activities. However, when it becomes a master rather than a servant, it engenders greed, corruption, and conflict. The pursuit of wealth can lead to moral compromises, as individuals may resort to dishonest means to accumulate wealth.

The Destructive Power of Greed

Greed, often fueled by the desire for money, can lead to a host of evils. It can breed corruption, inequality, and even violence. The widening wealth gap and the exploitation of vulnerable populations are tangible manifestations of this greed.

Money and Morality

However, it’s crucial to note that money itself is not inherently evil. It is the love of money, the obsession, and the greed that can lead to immoral actions. Hence, it’s not money, but the misuse of money that is the root of evil.

In conclusion, money is a necessary tool in our society, but it becomes a problem when individuals value it above all else. Thus, it’s not the money, but the human attitude towards it that can potentially be the root of all evil. This understanding can help us foster a healthier relationship with wealth and prevent the evils associated with its misuse.

500 Words Essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil

The notion of money as the root of all evil.

Money, a medium of exchange, has been a part of human civilization for thousands of years. It has been a driving force behind human progress, facilitating trade, and fostering economic development. However, it is often said that “money is the root of all evil,” a phrase derived from a biblical quote. This essay will delve into this contentious assertion, examining the role of money in society and its potential to engender malevolence.

Money’s Inherent Neutrality

Money, in its essence, is a neutral entity. It is a tool that can be used for good or ill, depending on the intentions of the user. Money can fund philanthropic endeavors, support scientific research, and provide for basic human needs. Conversely, it can also be used to finance illicit activities, corruption, and greed. The problem, therefore, does not lie with money itself but with the human attitudes and behaviors associated with it.

The Human Factor: Greed and Corruption

The assertion that money is the root of all evil often stems from observations of greed and corruption, particularly in the realms of politics and business. The insatiable desire for wealth can lead individuals to engage in unethical practices, such as bribery, fraud, and exploitation. However, it is crucial to recognize that these actions are driven by human flaws, not by the existence of money. It is the corruption of human values, the abandonment of moral principles in the pursuit of wealth, that is the true evil.

Money and Power Dynamics

Money also plays a pivotal role in power dynamics, often leading to inequality and injustice. Those with wealth can exert influence over political systems, skewing policies in their favor and perpetuating social inequities. In this sense, money can be seen as a source of evil. However, again, it is the misuse of money for power and control, rather than money itself, that is the root of such evils.

Money as a Means, Not an End

To mitigate the potential negative impacts of money, society must shift its perspective. Money should be viewed as a means to an end, not an end in itself. This requires fostering a culture that values integrity, fairness, and social responsibility above the accumulation of wealth. Education plays a critical role in this, promoting ethical behavior and responsible financial management.

Conclusion: A Nuanced Understanding

In conclusion, labeling money as the root of all evil oversimplifies a complex issue. Money, being neutral, is not inherently evil. It is the human misuse of money, driven by greed, corruption, and the desire for power, that leads to evil actions. Therefore, it is not money, but the flawed human values associated with its pursuit, that should be the focus of our attention and efforts for reform. A nuanced understanding of this issue can guide us towards a more equitable and ethical society.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Money is Not Everything
Essay on Money Is Important for Happiness
Essay on Money Can Buy Everything

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Money's Influence

Money is the root of all evil.' do you agree.

Money, often considered a medium of exchange representing wealth, has sparked debates throughout history. While some argue that the love of money is the root of all evil, others see it as a tool for positive change. In this essay, I will argue that money is not inherently good or evil; rather, its moral value is determined by our relationship with it. Money has fueled remarkable achievements in human history, driving the creation of empires, industrial revolutions, and technological advancements. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation serves as a prime example, showcasing how immense wealth can be harnessed for philanthropic purposes. Through their generous donations to combat poverty and disease, the Gateses have demonstrated how money can be a force for good in the world. Conversely, money has also been implicated in dark and abhorrent acts, funding wars, terrorism, and criminal enterprises. The 2019 college admissions scandal in the United States exemplifies how monetary power can be misused for personal gain and unfair advantages, sparking public outrage and revealing the corrosive influence of wealth. However, the moral standing of money hinges on our personal interactions with it. Viewing money as a tool to achieve noble ends rather than an end in itself can transform its impact. This shift entails prioritizing creating value for others over amassing material wealth, thereby leveraging resources to positively impact society. Our perception of money is inherently shaped by our upbringing, cultural values, and societal norms. Varying cultural attitudes toward wealth as an indicator of success or humility and service underscore the diverse perspectives on financial matters. It is crucial to introspect and confront our biases and beliefs about money to discern whether they propel us toward constructive or detrimental actions. To wield money for constructive change, fostering a healthy relationship with it is imperative. This involves setting clear financial objectives, crafting a budget, and evaluating spending habits regularly. Additionally, fostering gratitude toward money, recognizing it as a tool for communal betterment rather than equating it with personal value or status, is essential. In essence, money is neither intrinsically virtuous nor malevolent; rather, its ethical essence is contingent on our engagement with it. By cultivating a conscientious bond with money, focusing on altruism, and scrutinizing our attitudes towards wealth, we can make a substantial impact on the world and leave behind a legacy of positivity.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

COMMENTS

Money: Good or Evil? Comparing & Contrasting Research Paper
The Other Side of Money. As previously stated, money cannot be evil but the manner in which individuals use it makes such individuals to appear evil. For example, the same money that some individuals use to build friendship is also used by others to build hatred (Roe 5). The love for money leads to evil actions.
Is Money The Root of All Evil: Analysis of The Debate
The saying "money is the root of all evil" is an oversimplification. Money is a tool that highlights both the good and evil values of humanity. Concentrated money does facilitate greed, inequality and corruption when in the wrong hands. However, money also allows philanthropists, charities and governments to do immense good when used responsibly.
Money: Good or Evil? Comparing & Contrasting
1. Introduction Should wealth be pursued, or is it ultimately detrimental? This is a question that often works in the corners of the minds of humanity. Throughout the ages, people have felt an importance in pursuing monetary wealth, using it as a method to judge successes and failures in life, only achieving a more recent understanding of its importance in happiness. It is ironic, therefore ...
Philosophy of Money and Finance
A related argument can be found in Aquinas, who argued that money is a good that is consumed on use. Although a lender can legitimately demand repayment of an amount equivalent to the loan, it is illegitimate to demand payment for the use of the borrowed amount and so adding interest is unnatural and wrong (Summa Theologica, II-II, Q78).
Is money truly the root of all evil?
As far as I can see, money isn't good or evil, it is simply an amplifier. A single poor person cannot cause much harm, even with terrible intent. But a corporation, loaded with cash, can sicken and kill thousands of people, or even millions through negligence or the pursuit of profit. When people have a great deal of money, it can lead them to ...
How Money Changes the Way You Think and Feel
How Money Changes the Way You Think and Feel. Research is uncovering how wealth impacts our sense of morality, our relationships with others, and our mental health. The term "affluenza"—a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, defined as a "painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste ...
PDF Conventional Wisdom Tells Us . . . Money Is the Root of All Evil
Essay 10 Conventional Wisdom Tells Us . . . Money Is the Root of All Evil This essay documents the impact of income on issues of mortality and life chances. Money, with all its alleged downfalls, can still mean the difference between life and death. When it comes to issues of wealth and poverty, conventional wisdom spins a compelling tale.
Is Money the Root of All Evil? Exploring the Moral Landscape ...
Money, as an inanimate object, cannot inherently be good or evil. It is the emotional connection, the attachment, and the prioritization of wealth over moral values that pose the potential for ...
Money is the Root of All Evil
Money is the Root of All Evil - Or Is It? Recreating Culture through Everyday Neutralizing Practices. ... By illuminating processes of cultural creation stemming from the day-to-day neutralization of threats associated with money, this ethnographic study of an intentional community moves the question of boundaries beyond issues of exclusion ...
Is money the root of all evil, or good for the soul?
First of all, the entire quote from Pauls' Letter to Timothy is "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."
Money is not the root of all evil
First of all, your comment that "money is the root of all evil" is a misquote. You're referencing 1 Timothy 6:10 from the Bible, which is usually translated as "For the love of money is a ...
Money: Good or Evil? Comparing & Contrasting
📝 One of the most controversial debates concerning money is whether it is evil or good. Some of us subscribe to the school of thought that "money is the sou...
The Debate on Money as the Root of Evil
3. Money has been used for both good and evil throughout history. 4. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is an example of money being used for good. 5. The college admissions scandal is an example of money being used for evil. 6. Our relationship with money determines its moral value. 7. A shift in mindset is required to use money for good. 8.
Money Is the Root of All Evil
money can be the end product of theft. theft is evil. therefore money is the root of evil. Cozmo — more often people steal for money, pick-pockets, theives, burglars, crazy people. Money CAN be good but most people dont know how to use it so they use it for their own satisfying needs. Cozmo — 90% of crimes are based on money.
Is Money the Root of All Evil?
The phrase "money is the root of all evil" is a well-known saying that suggests that the love of money or an excessive focus on wealth can lead to negative outcomes, such as greed, selfishness, and unethical behavior. The actual quote comes from the New Testament of the Bible, specifically 1 Timothy 6:10, which states: " For the love of ...
Money is the Root of All Evil Essay
Drugs: the love of money is the root of all evils. Most people hold the false belief that they are unable to live without money; therefore, they condition their lives from early childhood to gain wealth by whatever means possible. This conning into the love of money has resulted in various forms of evils such as stealing, kidnapping, and ...
Is Money A Root Of Evil?
With that said, money is not the root of all evil because the thing that is truly making us evil is our love for money and greed. Many people today are working in order for them to earn money for their daily necessities, for their family, for their dreams, and for the things they want. In normal circumstances, people are working eight hours a ...
260 Money Topics to Write About & Essay Examples
There are lots of money essay topics for students to explore. You might want to focus on the issue of money management or elaborate on why money is so important nowadays. Other exciting topics for a money essay are the relation between money and love, the role of money in education, etc. Below you'll find a list of money topics to write about!
Money is the root of all evil.' Do you agree?
Essay Plan. 1. Money has been a topic of discussion for ages. 2. Some view money as a tool for good, while others believe it is the root of all evil. 3. Money has been used for both good and evil throughout history. 4. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is an example of money being used for good.
Essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil
500 Words Essay on Money Is the Root of All Evil ... It is a tool that can be used for good or ill, depending on the intentions of the user. Money can fund philanthropic endeavors, support scientific research, and provide for basic human needs. Conversely, it can also be used to finance illicit activities, corruption, and greed. ...
Money is the root of all evil.' Do you agree?
genius high. subjects. classical studies; sociology; law; french; economics; english
Money good or evil Free Essays
Money Is the Root of Evil. pursuit of money is damaging. 2. spiritual damage 3. there are alternatives to money 4. Family damage 5. MONEY CAUSES 90% OF CRIME 6. If money was such a good thing then IT would serve the people. Instead people serve IT. 7.

Is Money The Root of All Evil: Analysis of The Debate

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Money: Good or Evil? Comparing & Contrasting

2. The Benefits of Money

2.1. Facilitating Trade

2.2. Enhancing Standard of Living

2.3. Providing Opportunities for Growth

3. The Drawbacks of Money

3.1. Promoting Greed and Materialism

3.2. Creating Socioeconomic Inequality

3.3. Corrupting Moral Values

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Philosophy of Money and Finance

1.1 What is Money?

4.1 Money as the Root of All Evil?

4.2 Fairness in Financial Markets

4.3 The Social Responsibility of Finance

5. Political Philosophy

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How Money Changes the Way You Think and Feel

More money, less empathy?

Wealth can cloud moral judgment

Wealth has been linked with addiction

Money itself can become addictive

Wealthy children may be more troubled

We tend to perceive the wealthy as “evil”

Money can’t buy happiness (or love)

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Money Is the Root of All Evil

All the Yes points:

Is Money the Root of All Evil?

What does ‘money is the root of all evil’ mean?

Clearing Up Our Relationship with Money

History of Our Relationship with Money

Vainglory or Pride

Avarice or Greed

Wrath or Anger

Money Is Not Evil

Stages of Our Relationship with Money

Ignorance of Childhood Surrounding Money

The Fancy of Youth and Money

The Anger of Youth Adulthood toward Money

Accepting Money as a Tool