“Money is the root of all evil”.

I keep hearing this nonsense. Money is just a medium of exchange, so we don’t have to pay for cell phone service using barrels of fish. It’s a means through which a complex economy can utilize a division of labor determined by the individual interests and talents of every involved actor.

Without trade, you do not have a home unless you build one, and you do not have food unless you kill, grow, or gather it. You’d love to build a home but you’re too busy hunting and farming, along with crafting clothing and tools for yourself. You’d have to be an expert construction worker, architect, farmer, hunter/gatherer, tailor, doctor, medicine manufacturer, lumberjack, paper presser, cobbler, security guard, firefighter, cook, miner, plumber, cartographer, weaponsmith, sanitation specialist, welldigger, engineer, and about a million other things, just to have a somewhat reasonably comfortable life (based on modern standards of having a roof over your head, a bathroom, etc) and that’s not incorporating the skills needed to facilitate recreational activities, because there’s no fucking way you’d have time for any of that shit. In this world, there is no division of labor.

Suppose there is trade but no money. Without money the only trade is barter, meaning that if your daily occupation is pottery, then you cannot get me to build you a home unless I’m interested in lots of pots, bowls, and vases from you, or whatever else you and your skillset can provide. Hopefully you suck dick well. Imagine the ridiculous barter system applied to the modern world. A pilot cannot buy milk unless the milk merchant wants to be flown somewhere. A programmer must trade software for spices. College tuition is paid in horseshoes. Your auto insurance liability limits are set to 50 hens per person & 100 pounds of wheat per accident for bodily injury, and 500,000 staplers for property damage. Your mortgage is 200,000 pheasants. With no currency, the market is limited to exchanges of primarily use-value based goods. This cripples the efficiency of the division of labor.

With the addition of money, the system becomes viable. I can devote my efforts to insurance sales, whilst you devote your efforts to manufacturing Cap’n Crunch, and I can buy some of your Cap’n Crunch even if you don’t want my insurance, because you recognize the universally accepted exchange value of the Bitcoin I’m offering. You understand that the Bitcoin I offer in exchange for your scrumptious but mouth-destroying cereal, can get you that new cheese you’re dying to try, or pay for your daughter’s insulin, which is itself produced by an insulin specialist aiming to earn Bitcoin to fund buying furniture for his family. The furniture merchant will accept Bitcoin because she understands that it will enable her to buy insurance from me, to better protect her assets.