oney is not the metric. I used to have that phrase on my old Instagram and on a bulletin board near my bed, so I saw it first thing in the morning. This was when I was living in Los Angeles, and money was the only metric I saw everywhere. Yes, beauty is currency in Los Angeles, but underneath everything, everything a flow of money like sewer pipes beneath a city. Then I moved across the country to work for a company that was in the business of helping people make money, now living near a city where money isn’t just the metric, it’s the raison d’être for our government.

Which is to say that when author Paul Vigna, author of The Almightier, says that money is the godhead of the United States, I believe him. I almost hesitate to post this interview I did with him for the New Books Network because if you are curious about how money’s role has changed over time, you need to read the book. The book starts at the beginning of recorded history and delves into the twisted skein of religion and money throughout civilization. It is, like most of the story of humanity, both beautiful and disgusting. Money builds cathedrals and enslaves us all.

How can we reconcile our conception of god or deity with wealth inequality, rampant injustice, and losses that seem profoundly unfair? The winner of a sports championship always praises god for making the win possible. We tend to believe that when we are winning, god wants that for us. But is the loser on the other side of the field somehow less worthy?

We can probably all agree that Jesus (the historical man or the god) preached loving kindness and forgiveness. What Vigna explores is Jesus’s words, not just the forgiving of our “trespasses” but the forgiving of our debt. Debt forgiveness has existed as long as debt has, in ancient Sumer, they called it amagi. Over and over throughout history, debts amassed and needed to be purged so that society could start fresh. This went away before the early days of the Roman Empire, when Jesus is believed to have lived.

Us old folks in the room remember the late 1990s when Bono and many activists pushed for Jubilee 2000 and a resetting of debt. It is often positioned as charity. Part of the controversy around student loans stems from those who already paid off their debts as if someone else’s suffering will somehow retroactively ameliorate their own. But debt relief wasn’t just about the debtors, it was about clearing the pipes, letting the system start over again.

Money isn’t real and yet it rules our lives. Does capitalism just exist because we haven’t found a better system yet? Or is there no better system? Reading The Almightier was both comforting because it is nice to see other people asking the same questions, but also disheartening because we’ve been fretting over the nature of money since Aristotle’s time. We still haven’t been able to figure out how to amass enough resources to take care of ourselves without tipping into greed and hoarding. I’m Libra enough to know balance is an illusion, but I hate that the world has to go to extremes for people to see the pain debt causes.

This book provides an accessible and thorough history of capitalism, and how views of the morality of wealth have changed over the years. I was especially interested in the ways humans have sought to sanctify greed, with norms in the Christian church in particular changing from “usury and greed are sins” to “it’s good to earn a lot of money so you can be generous with it” to the Calvinist idea that rich people have lots of money because that’s God’s plan.

One of the most interesting (albeit dark) chapters is about the founding of the U.S., and the way Black people were dehumanized in order to justify the greed-fuelled transatlantic slave trade. It points to the potential for the all-consuming desire for wealth to spiral into far greater evils.

A more hopeful chapter comes at the end, where the author proposes ideas to reform capitalism. Among the most radical of these is a worldwide, one-time debt jubilee, where all debt, including national debt, would be forgiven. While I am not hopeful that this will come to pass, the author makes a persuasive argument for it, and it’s inspiring to see radical economic ideas outside of the capitalism vs. socialism binary.

Overall, this was a very readable book, and I think history buffs will get a lot out of it. I certainly did!

Thank you to the publisher for gifting me an early copy of this book!

I learned a lot about the history of currency, economics, and capitalism, from antiquity to contemporary times. I've never heard this subject discussed from this perspective-- a moral reckoning of this thing we think of as necessary to human life, that is so ubiquitous in every aspect of human life, that no human could feasibly leave behind without ostracizing themselves from every conceivable social good. This is a book about conformity, social pressure, and power and corruption, by necessity, since it's about the proliferation of personal debt and the accumulation and concentration of personal and institutional wealth in the hands of a very few.

It's difficult to read this book as anything other than what it is-- a takedown of contemporary capitalism by disassembling its roots. It is full of fascinating research and history I have never heard. I recommend this one to readers who are grappling with the rise of greed, who are critical of contemporary economics in theory or practice, and for anyone who is interested to trace the history of human preoccupation with wealth. A suggestion: this history doesn't paint humanity in a flattering light, so if criticism is something you avoid, you might avoid this one. If you can handle a little disillusionment, you will enjoy this.

Thank you to the author Paul Vigna, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of THE ALMIGHTIER. Thank you to St. Martin's Press for a hardback copy. All views are mine.

Thank you to the SMP Early Readers + Saint Martin's Publishing + Netgalley for the gifted copy.

This was a very interesting read. It is very different from what I am used to. This book gives people insight on how we as humans give money the power and importance that it has over everything. It talks about how greed has taken over in politics and religion. However, a lot of it to me seems biased. I could be wrong, and I there are parts that I can agree with and some parts that I can disagree with. I also feels like this could also be backed up by more evidence and research. I feel as if it lacks information. Maybe, I'm just missing the entire point or premise of this book. I think I got lost in certain segments of this book. It had me trailing in certain sections because I couldn't follow it's ideology. Maybe, it's just me. This book could just be completely out of my element.

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Vigna lays out compelling history for how the Church (Roman Catholic initially and Protestant ones later) became entrapped in the desire for more. Greed is good, as fictional Gordon Gecko says, and the author traces the writings (mostly) from the last 600 years that led to this point. The book starts with a critical eye towards organized religion subverting its own beliefs or scriptural mandates to justify the accumulation of wealth. With that influence, society as a whole fell in love with amassing more financial resources, with the many theologians’ blessings that such wealth is a sign of God’s favor. It is a fascinating read to learn about the different theological, papal and economic treatises that influenced society’s thought processes.

While the book ends with recommendations for political and banking reform, there are no religious reforms suggested. If the root cause is the Church, it seems reform needs to take place there as well. Unless, as a former Roman Catholic, the author has given up on any additional reform. The 1500s saw the last reform and nothing like it will occur again, so he implies. As Vigna notes some countervailing movements against the rising tide of blessing and promoting avarice, including some rebellions and revolutions, there is little evidence of how prevalent the premise that “more is better” is in society. Certainly there are such attitudes and utterances but what percentile of the populace (even if you look only at developed countries) are endeavoring mightily to accumulate? Anecdotally, there are just as many people acknowledging that we don’t own things, things own us. So are political and economic and religious leaders in the dicta of greed leading us or just spouting into the wind and the words are carried away while we go on about our lives, surviving and thriving? How much reform is really needed except where there is injustice and forced inequality? Perhaps there is nothing for the Church to fix if most of their congregations are “okay” on this point and then it proverbially comes down to “Physician, heal thyself” ensuring that religious leaders are falling into the avarice trap.

Similarly, the growth in wealth within the Roman Catholic Church may have been motivated by greed, or pure desire to display God’s glory with visible means—art, architecture, etc.. These seem to be the only two motivations researched. Could there be others to also explain the movement? Solving medieval unemployment issues such as America’s New Deal accomplished in the 1930s? Redistribution of wealth from those who give the most to the less-advantaged laborers being paid for their work? These potential drives are not fully explored nor may they have been written down for historians since only the wealthy read and who wants to tell the wealthy that they are being “used” or “robbed” in a Robin Hood fashion.

For those who need to refute “greed is good” or monitor our premises for capital campaigns in different organizations, understanding the history of thought that got us to believe certain practices are good is important. This book help us do that.

I appreciate the publisher providing an advanced copy.

Always love a good book about economics, money, finance, greed… this was just a hot mess. Not enough research done on the topic at hand (bank liquidity, fed funds, how the fed reserve works… for one). Story was all over the place. Writing was hard to follow… what was the objective here.

This book's timing was perfect. A philosophical inquiry that raises profound questions about power, human agency, and the ethical dimensions of progress. As our society is torn between those holding onto God and those worshiping science and material goods, a look into the potential to find if not harmony than at least understanding. Perhaps part of the issue is that our technological advancement has significantly outpaced our moral understanding. For example, how might AI be used ethically? For years many saw it as a competition against humans, but perhaps if used ethically it could help us transcend beyond our capabilities. Is this something that we want? If you're down to take a pause and spend a moment going down a bit of a rabbit hole here this book goes through some interesting things we have philosophically understood, and forgotten, and re-learned once more.

Thank you for providing this copy for me to read and review, I greatly enjoyed it.