Not a cliche but a question that can only be answered with Edgeworth's
barter box;
And oft as wine has played the infidel
And robbed me of my robe of honor
I often wonder what the vinter buys
One half so precious as the stuff he sells.
roughly, from Omar Khyyam
Gene Coyle
Carrol Cox wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >
> > "Money is the root of all evil."
>
> This should probably not be included, since its provenance long
> predates political economy or economics: "Radix malorum cupiditas
> est" (I'm not sure I've got the word order straight) should be
> translated, "The lust or desire for money," not "Money" as such,
> is the root of all evils. This proverb then belongs to a social
> order (or social orders) grounded in use values rather than in
> the appropriation of surplus value, and should be seen primarily
> as expressing Aristotle's point that of the two uses of sandals,
> the second (to sell) was perverted. Money as a goal in and of
> itself is evil, but its proper use (to acquire the needs or luxuries
> of life) is not evil. There is a more or less "natural" limit to the
> number of pairs or sandals or number of quarts of wine one
> might desire, but there was no such limit to the acquisition of
> money, which was in principle infinite.
>
> So "(Desire for) Money is the root of all evil" is a proverb
> rather than a cliche.
>
> Carrol
