"Money is the root of all evil I thought, but when I'm broke is when I usually have the evilest thoughts. That's when the arms come out, like sleeves when its short" - Fabolous, on the song Family Reunion by Joe Budden.
Back in the days of old, goods were exchanged for goods and services. If you grew potatoes and you needed some shoes making, you'd trade your potatoes in exchange for shoes being made for you - but that would require the person who's making the shoes to have any need for potatoes. We've heard about this enough in history and we can understand how it all worked.
At some point in history (not sure on the details, so I won't speak about it with specifics), instead of trading goods for goods and services, we introduced an intermediary. Instead of having to trade your potatoes for shoes, you could trade your potatoes for an intermediary, and then use the intermediary to trade for shoes. Now all of a sudden, it didn't matter whether the person making your shoes needed potatoes or not - they could trade the intermediary for anything they wanted.
Fast forward to now, the same system still exists. Our intermediary is called money. On a five pound note (fun fact: that's the only bank note I have in my wallet, and has been there for a really long time) is the text "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five pounds".
Now, this post isn't about money being backed by nothing in current society - that's a whole other post. But I want to focus on the phrase "money is the root of all evil". The phrase seems to originate from the bible Timothy 6:10: "for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils", but as the bible has had multiple iterations and translations, I'm not sure on what the original form of this phrase was, but it works for now. The shortening of the phrase I believe has lost the message of the original quote.
Money is the tool we use to facilitate trade. It in itself is not evil. It allows our current society to function. It means we don't all need to constantly enter multi-party trading agreements all the time. We get to use our intermediary. I'd even argue that loving money is not an evil. I have plans to retire early and so I need to have some kind of pursuit of money to allow this. I need to some kind of love of money, to allow myself to live post-retirement.
I posit the idea that the phrase instead should be "greed is the root of all evil". Greed forces Amazon to create an environment which force their workers to use bottles instead of having pee breaks (source) because they don't have time to find a bathroom, or use it. Greed makes companies not pay their taxes correctly. Greed makes companies exploit resources as far as they can, without any real care for sustainability.
In 2008, eBay as a minority shareholder took Craigslist to court (source). Craigslist's actions meant that eBay wouldn't see as much profit. The legal proceedings are now studied and cited as case law. Now I respect that corporations exist to make profit, but I'm also not ignorant enough to believe that shareholders would not use the outcome of Ebay v Craigslist to make threats any time a CEO brings up ideas of improving worker conditions or making environment conscious decisions at the cost of profits.
Where corporations makes hundreds of millions, why not spend a million to improve conditions for people? Where Bobby Kotick takes a near $200 million dollar bonus while laying off 50 staff, why aren't alarm bells ringing for everyone?
The money here isn't evil. The greed here, is evil. Where $200 million could pay the median salary (in 2019) of $40,000 for 5,000 people - and that's the bonus for one person? Which they took while laying staff off? That's greed. And greed here is pure evil.
I've never been against money. I've always earned above the average salary in the UK. I've always had a very comfortable lifestyle. I'm not able to buy name brand clothes every week and drive a really expensive car - but I've never been uncomfortable. I have nice things.
I will always be against that level of greed exhibited by companies. It needs to change - and fast.