Money is the cure to all evil

I went to the bookstore awhile ago with one specific intention. I wanted to find the ultimate psychological root of all evil in the world (or rather, of all evil people).

I took Nazism, communism, and terrorism as the three most prominent evils in this past century. I sought to find what drove the leaders of these movements. Hence, I read Mein Kampf at the bookstore.

The uniting themes I found in all evil is victimology and class warfare.

The theme among all of evil has been victimology, i.e. "I am doing poorly in some way through no fault of my own" and class warfare, i.e "I have identified the group of people responsible for my poor condition and I am going to get revenge."

Note that it is not just classism, but class warfare. Classism takes shape in all sorts of forms: people who identify black American culture with rap music, people who associate French people as snobbish, people who identify Germans as great physicists. The problem is not classism, but class warfare. It is when you see black American culture as stopping you from doing well in the rap industry, or any other culture of people as explicitly harming you. Identifying any group of people with a particular attribute is not the problem, seeing yourself in a power struggle with that group is. (*As a side note, the fact that they happened in classes can be attributed to the fact that I studied wars. Individual crime has similar themes, but is not taken to the class level.)

The NAZI movement, for instance, was driven by victimology and hatred. After WWI, in which Germany had to pay for their aggressions in the war, their economy was in shambles. Hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism were rampant among the German people. They blamed the Jews as the reason for their economically poor state. Indeed, Hitler also identified the Jews as the reason for his beloved Germans weakened state (he was an extreme nationalist, placing, above all else, his country.) Hitler exploited this hatred to catapult himself into power. As such, the war of the NAZI's upon the Jews took place.

Communists also believed that the proletarians were weak. They also subscribed this not to any fault of their own, but to the bourgeois, i.e. the property owning class. They hence sought to slaughter all property owners (killing more people than the Nazis did).

Similarly, terrorists believe they are down-trodden. They also do not think it is their fault, but the fault of the Judeo-Christian West. Terrorists hold up pie charts to their youth, and show them "all the world's resources," with the United States taking up near all of them. You can observe for yourself, on 9-11, 2002, their response to their feelings.

Indeed, this seems intuitively obvious and simple—that people who feel down trodden will take their anguish out on others. However, this observation is counter to what most people view as the root of all evil. Most people view people who are evil as people who are incredibly strong and capable. However, despite popular belief, evil is not the product of people who feel confident in their ability to negotiate reality. Evil has always been the product of have-nots not of haves. Why does a burglar rob a store? Because he has no money. How ironic that the evil character in all our stories is always a cool, confident, intelligent man!

I dare you to take any evil in the world and see if it meets this criterion. You will find that it does. Take the Columbine students for example. The Columbine students saw the world the way most high school students do, as a very rigid class system, (known as "cliques"). Viewing themselves as the oppressed clique, they took their rage out on what they felt to be the ruling clique, killing 13 of their fellow high school students.

All evil people have viewed the world as a place of coercion, where there are only masters and slaves; kings and followers; those who exploit and those who are exploited. They see it this way because of a fundamental philosophical error: the error of believing that wealth is finite.

Imagine that you do not see the world as a place in which production is the key to success. Instead of the economic pie being unlimited, you find it to be limited, and your survival is a matter of fighting your way to these limited good before anyone else does. Now also imagine that other people around you are wildly successful while you have minimal earnings.

This is the fundamental philosophical belief of evil people. They do not recognize that their success is in their own hands. They fail to recognize the metaphysical link between their effort and their success. The philosophical identification of production as man's means of survival is the antidote to evil.

It is not haphazard that terrorists show a limited economic pie to their children, claiming America takes up all of the world's resources. Terrorists have yet to grasp the concept of production, for if they did, they would know that the economic pie is not limited.

The Germans, post WWI were forced to pay retributions to the winning countries. As such, their economy was in ruins. People could not enjoy the benefits of capitalism. They did not see the link between their productive effort and their success.

And, indeed, communists did not understand the essence of production: their very economics are the final, practical application of those who fail to link productive ability to wealth.

All of these people, philosophically, fail to realize that their success is in their hands. It is not a matter of laziness. It is the failure to analyze the world around them and realize that their effort will lead to their success. Because of their failure to introspect, their feelings of rage and envy will consume them when exposed to something which is glorious and successful.

It is ironic, then, that we refer to money—the ultimate symbol of production—as the root of all evil. The dollar sign is a symbol of a person who made wealth. Money is not the root of all evil, but the very cure to all evil in the world. To attain money, man must work for it, his paycheck is hard earned. Indeed, Hitler, communists, and terrorists all were not driven by money. All three were strong in their conviction that money was evil.

There is a reason why evil is largely contained in America, and why America has never initiated any war. It is because Americans explicitly are allowed to be rewarded for their effort. Americans are aware of the nature of production. It is epitomized by what we call, "The American Dream." The American Dream is the Dream of being allowed to pursue whatever happiness you want, with only your own talent and ambition determining the extent of your success. An American is fully aware that his success is in his hands. Indeed, it is this, the link between effort and success, the philosophical identification of production as man's means of survival, that is necessary for a healthy, successful society to exist.

There are factions in America that are adopting the same basic psychological mentalities of Nazis, communists, and terrorists. Feminists, in particular, have identified themselves, they being women, as being exploited, and have blamed it on the "patriarchy," particularly the Christian patriarchy. (It is by no means accidental that feminists sympathize with terrorists and are opposed to the war on terror).

Indeed, if you take any women's studies class you will find out why. Feminists are clueless to the essence of production, which is why they hate capitalism. Indeed, feminists consistently put down the American Dream, crying that the American Dream is not possible to women, blacks etc. due to "societal injustice." Feminists fail to see the metaphysical link between a woman's effort and her subsequent success.

The application of this has been their "war on men," in which they are seeking to destroy any semblance of male sexuality or male assertiveness. Indeed, they have not, as of yet, turned it into a bloody war. However, if you ever meet a feminist –seen the seething hatred they give to anyone who disagrees with them, their desire to get blood to anyone who stands in the way of their Utopia, you can be sure of one thing. Had they not lived in America, where we have individual rights and objective law, they would have.

The root of all evil is not selfish in nature, but utterly selfless. It is the man who is incapable of providing for his basic needs (or the man who wants more than he is capable of producing, i.e. the pretentious man) that necessarily turns to violence. Indeed, I am looking forward to the movie that actually captures evil for what it is. A movie in which the antagonist is not the ultra-intelligent PhD., but rather the person who has slipped into the evils of victimology.

Amber Pawlik

June 16, 2002