INTRODUCTION
"Money is the root of all evil" is, in addition to being a sorry mistranslation of the biblical phrase it is cribbing, a common and tragically erroneous refrain in modern society. I am not a Christian and have no interest in correcting the translation error so I'll just stick with mainstream understanding.
Money, it is held, promotes greed and hoarding; while it is sometimes acknowledged that money is necessary, desiring to maintain a large amount of it is seen as "greedy" and a poor character attribute with the reverse being held in high esteem: our culture is rife with parables and fables showing evil, Machiavellian and destructive (or, at best, tragically dissatisfied and in need of saving by some Little Orphan Annie) rich men; on the reverse, to be poor or struggling is almost always shown as honourable and just, as if repelling money away from you -- and giving it away when, by some misfortune you should come into great fortune -- is the highest good and retaining your wealth is the lowest evil. Moneyless societies are portrayed in speculative fiction as greater, "more evolved" or somehow more "good" than our crude modern society -- despite the fact that in the course of attempting to portray a complete world they nearly always break this Aesop by showing a form of money which, although lacking a physical currency, is money nonetheless (such as Federation Credits in Star Trek). I won't bother dissecting the anti-Semitic "space jew" portrayals of the Ferengi or Toydarians.
In spiritual circles, priests and popes and spirit mediums alike laud poverty as good by portraying those who escape its grip as evil. It is asserted that since they benefit and others did not, that they somehow must have exploited those who were unable to escape being poor. At best, they are somehow at fault by virtue of not sharing their good fortune and lifting everyone else up with them. Popes describe "capitalism" as evil and heap upon the market the blame for all the world's ills. Spirit channels speaking for angels tell of space aliens who have somehow managed to get their planets to provide their needs without scarcity and look upon our moneyed societies as primitive. I will not bother answering religious assertions here; I will only be dealing with the physical world we live in today. Even if these people speak true and "god" or some spirit truly instructed them as such, this shows only that gods and spirits are just as prone to ignorance and stupidity as humans.
All of these ideas demonstrate neither a higher intelligence nor a greater spiritual evolution than we common money grubbers; this does not show any deeper morality or higher honour nor is it a sign of being aloof from the stain of greed. Such ideals show nothing more than an ignorance of what money actually is.
In this article I will concretely define value, money and currency. I will briefly touch on the source of value but nothing I say here should be construed as a complete value theory; such is beyond the scope of this writing. I will briefly touch on why moneyless societies are, in fact, horrible ideas, but nothing I say here should be construed as a complete critique of speculative fiction and spirituality; such is beyond the scope of this writing. I will briefly touch on various currencies and compare solid, fiat and cryptographic currencies however this should not be construed as a complete description of an ideal currency theory; such is beyond the scope of this writing. The only purpose of this article is to provide as a framework for discussion and philosophy -- especially as I shall outline in later writings -- some basic terminology. Specifically, to define "money", "currency" and "value" in philosophical/economic terms.
Now, this doesn't mean one wouldn't find me in cold hard reality referring to my currency on hand as "money", or the price of a TV as its "value". This doesn't mean I expect others to change their way of speaking either -- merely to clarify some words as they are used in economic and political discussion where precision of language is of greater import.
It should also be noted that one does not need a complete understanding of these things in order to have great success in dealing with them; human civilization has thrived and grown and evolved from place to place in a constant thread of largely successful -- even if only temporarily -- peoples long before the Austrian Theory was ever fully comprehended. Money is what money is, even when the people using it to great success do not truly understand it. You do not have to be a mechanic or engineer to drive a car.
I will begin with a definition of value since, as will become apparent, once these things are understood there is a logical flow of value to money to currency. I will next discuss money as an extension of the definition of value and finally I will discuss currency as a physical manifestation of money.
VALUE
There is a common mistake conflating "value" and "price" in amateur economic discussion. People discuss the "value" of goods and services in terms of set, objective monetary costs needed to acquire them. This is in fact a reversal of the true nature of value and promotes a curious case of needing multiple definitions for the word (value as in the price of a good or service; or, value as in the preference or regard one holds for a person, thing or phenomenon) when the correct understanding would suffice. It also allows those attempting to advocate for fallacious economic ideals to control the conversation by inserting moral outrage when the value of an employee's wages is conflated with his value as a person.
In economic terms, the second definition is in fact correct: value is the preference, esteem or regard. In this way we can understand economic value as being synonymous with cultural values and as such value might indeed refer to an employees "value as a person"; however it also can be understood that in terms of ordered preferences our culture would almost always rank that value above any other good or service in any other quantity. However it should also be understood that the value of a person's labours in a given capacity are different than the value of the person as a whole being.
The mistake of conflating value with monetary cost stems from two problems: first being that most people in history have grown up in societies in which the money and currency of that society are firmly established which would mean that a person making a value judgement on a good or service would be able to defer to the value set by the culture as a whole -- its price (or even if they understood the concept of value, most exchanges in a society will be in the form of translating the good or service's value into money); the second issue is that people tend to seek objective, "one size fits all" classifications on things especially when dealing with quantification of things such as value and as such you see the various objective value theories which universally equate value and price. This is the fallacious reification of "cultural value" into an objective form when in fact "cultural values" are ever evolving, shifting as the culture grows -- which in turn occurs as people are born, gain life experience and die to be replaced by others with entirely different life experiences. In short, even the seeming objective cultural values are subjective.
As such, when we refer to value we are referring to nothing more than the subjective desires of individuals. In the next section we will begin to understand how values dictate prices. However, we must now understand that value - rather than being a quantity of money - is simply one's own preferences.
MONEY
Money is anything which we use as the vehicle for storage and transmission of value; it is, in essence, a communication device or meme used to translate one's own subjective values into an exchangeable and quantifiable unit. You sell your money for goods and services, expressing your preference both between the competing goods and services and between the ones you have selected and the value you currently hold. In this way a good or service not only must meet your preference over other comparable goods and services; it must meet your preference over the money you have to exchange for it. While you are the buyer of the good or service you are also the seller, offering your stored value which must be preferred by the buyer over the good or service they offer in exchange. In this way, we must understand money not in terms of buyers and sellers but rather in terms of trade partners.
Money is obtained by the provision of a good or service and in this way must be understood as society's "atta boy", a certificate of appreciation, if you will, for said good or service. Money is a measure of society's preference towards those goods and services a person has provided. Prices, then, are not value but rather an expression of the value one places on a good or service and thus the preferences they hope to meet in an exchange.
Now, one might argue, this could mean that the overall value a person holds (that is, the amount of money they have) dictates their value as a person as an argument of moral outrage against this description of money. This would be fallacious; it is easily falsified by the question "would you consider it acceptable for someone to kill you in exchange for your current 'net worth'?". As such terms such as 'net worth' must be eyed with suspicion. At least in the present culture, the value of a human being is held as inestimable and the idea that a person's "net worth" somehow determines their value as a person is rightly considered absurd (indeed, as mentioned in the introduction we almost tend to have an INVERSE relationship between a person's net worth and their "human value").
By extension we might also wonder about inheritance -- after all, what goods and services could a wealthy person's heirs possibly have provided to society to deserve the quantity of value they will be bequeathed. This betrays both a misunderstanding of ownership as well as, once again, the nature of money. Society does not own the value; it has sold that value in the form of money to the one that earned it. That person may give it to whom they choose, when and how they choose; and indeed value exchange is still being communicated to society: the person has successfully communicated their desire, their preference, to ease the lives of their children after their passing. As such a preference has in fact been expressed and our definition for money still holds.
In short, money is simply a means -- any means -- to communicate one's values to the overall culture. A hypothetical moneyless society is thus nothing more than a society in which members have no ability to express their values.
CURRENCY
Currency is any token exchanged as money -- physically or virtually (though once one understands the nature of "virtual" exchanges one understands that they are in fact physical exchanges). It is this quantization, manifestation and exchange of money which is often rendered invisible and passed off as a "moneyless" exchange in speculative fiction; in short, they have no physical currency and pretend this means their society is moneyless. In fact, they do not even lack a currency, as a virtual exchange is still an exchange.
Any token exchanged in any way as a quantification of money is currency. Whether bitcoins or dollars, packaged into form for exchange in a quantity, these things are called currency. Currency is, essentially, money given manifestation. Given form it can be exchanged and traded for goods, services or other forms of money. Currency is thus what gives money its ability to transmit value.
Speculative societies that lack currency thus prevent the expression of values. However, as stated, these speculative societies often do in fact exchange currency, they merely hide it behind the smoke and mirrors of virtual exchange.
We must therefore recognize the beauty and value of currency in any form: it allows us to express concretely our desires and preferences and values to and within our culture.
Money is not the root of all evil; money is a thing of beauty and a means of communication which exists without the need for violence yet allows people to communicate their morals, desires, preferences -- their VALUES, things which they often feel most strongly about -- not only within their own culture, but across all cultures.
I love money. It doesn't just talk, it sings.