When was the last time you heard someone declare, “Greed is good,” and did not instantly think of Gordon Gekko with slicked-back hair and suspenders? A gif of a dollar sign-eyed Elon Musk, perhaps?

Yeah. That is the world we live in.

However, what if I told you that this idea – that wanting more, grabbing more, needing more – is not just a quirky trait of Wall Street bros or tech billionaires? What if it has become the default setting for how we think about success, morality, and even survival?

That is the punchy, provocative, wince-inducing question that Paul Vigna poses in his new short book The Almightier: How Money Became God, Greed Became Virtue, and Debt Became Sin. It is a book that charts not merely the history of capitalism. It goes back to the history of the very idea of belief itself.

Moreover, believe me, it is crazier than what it reads.

So, What Even Is “The Almightier”?

Okay, let us break it down.

The title itself is enough to make your stomach clench. “The Almightier.”

Monotheism is being taken head-on, because this only suggests that money – the Almighty Dollar, the Almighty Euro, the Almighty whatnot – has sat on a throne that used to be reserved for gods.

Vigna, a veteran financial reporter (yes, the same guy who helped write The Age of Cryptocurrency), is not about to bore you with economics 101. He is here to tell a story. A tremendous, grand narrative, five millennia in the making, of how we, as people, lost our common belief. We moved it from the clouds to the ledgers, from grace to GNP.

Think about it. Have you ever heard someone say, “The market will decide,” or “Money talks,” or “You cannot argue with success”? These are not just sayings. They are tenets. Whether we know it or not, they are the new commandments we live by.

The Past: When Gods Had Ledgers (And Ledgers Had Power)

Vigna starts way, way back.

Like Mesopotamia, clay tablets and temple priests are making a comeback. Here is the amazement: writing did not start with poetry or philosophy. They were for accounting. Maintaining records of the gods’ debts

Think about that. The first use we found for writing was to scratch a verbal contract on a clay tablet that an invisible sky being had us fulfill. Their business debts were not just a financial concern; they also had a spiritual component. You were in debt to the gods, and thus to their earthly representatives: the priests. The concept of value and debt was already woven into the very strands of organized religion, if not cash itself.

Fast forward a bit. That leads us to the tales we already know. The Bible, for instance. In a piece on Jesus’ Temple cleansing, Vigna provides a fantastic reimagining of this well-known event, as seen in Patayin at Mateo A.

And not out the money changers because it is unholy or anything (though there is that), no, for a different reason. Consider it a political statement. A repudiation of a system that used debt to ensnare, to enchain, to grovel. This was not simply a matter of Jesus’ anger against commerce in a sacred place. He was outraged by a financial system that treated humans as commodities.

The concept of debt as slavery is not a new one.

This is why the idea of Jubilee (explained as a time when debts were forgiven and enslaved people were set free — every 50 years) came into existence. However, it was not a matter of only being decent. It was about survival. Preventing society from imploding under the weight of unpayable obligations.

The only problem is that the old world, where faith tempered greed and spirituality served as a watchdog on material gain, has given way. It could not. As societies evolved and secularized, the church’s hold was broken. You know what replaced that vacuum?

Spoiler alert: it was neither community gardens nor group hugs.

The Present: How Greed Got a Makeover (And a Seat at the Table)

This is the part where things get fascinating, and also quite gross.

Vigna examines the Renaissance, a period of radical change, exploration, and — importantly — colossal growth in the merchant classes. Cities like Florence tolerated money, but some even made it an obligation. However, the kicker is that even the profiteers (I am looking at you, Medici family) wanted to be able to sleep at night. They still wanted God’s blessing.

Enter guys like Poggio Bracciolini. He wrote so much more than how-to manuals on making money. See Also: He Penned Moral Rationales to Amass Wealth. His line of reasoning contended that wealth was not a net evil but instead, used for good — to construct churches, establish hospitals, and endow art. This was more than just greed with a PR problem. This was greed now with the imprimatur of religion.

Then it is a short distance to the Protestant Reformation and John Calvin. Moreover, of course, there is the Calvinist “Protestant Work Ethic” – that work and money are what God wants and rewards. I was born to be rich; it was divine destiny. (And sure, Calvin also said you should give your money away, but… to be real, how frequently did THAT set part adhere?)

Then along came Adam Smith and his concept of the invisible hand. Smith did not invent capitalism, but he provided it with a philosophy. He said that if people all acted in their best interest (a code word for greed), they would inadvertently benefit society in the process. Boom. Greed is not a sin anymore. It is a service. It is the engine of progress.

Vigna takes us down a centuries-long evolution of each era, finding its ways to explain away their accumulation of wealth. The moral language shifted, but the motivation for it remained – I want more. Moreover, slowly — but surely — the concept that making money was good became ingrained into the ethos of Western culture.

Fast-forward to the founding of the United States. A nation based on Enlightenment principles and a strict separation of church and state. So what do you believe in, if not God (or at least not only God)? Vigna proposes that the answer here was quick and easy: cash. Home ownership, a dream that we are taught is synonymous with the American Dream. Moreover, that is the idea that if you are willing to work hard and put your ingenuity to use, you can buy your way into wealth—the belief in the system itself.

And now? We live in a world now where an Ayn Rand-esque ethos, which entirely disregards shared sacrifice and the common good, has taken root everywhere, where you are called “greedy,” which is, in other places, seen as being ambitious. Where debt is not just a financial burden, but a moral stain, you are not broke, you are just bad at managing money. That is not just bad luck; you are lazy.

As Vigna points out, that change was no accident. It was not just an accident of economic developments. This was a cultural and theological revolution. It is not as if this cult of money worship just began. It was a new god to replace the old gods.

Moreover, like any good religion, it has its prophets (Smith, Rand), its commandments (work hard, accumulate wealth), and its sinners (the poor, the indebted).

The Future? Well, That is Where It Gets Tricky…

So, we figured out the history and determined what is going on now. Moreover, what does Vigna suggest we do about these?

This is when the book starts getting weird. Vigna, you see, is no mere historian or critic. He is a fellow who is very concerned about our path and would like to help point the way toward some better options. However, let’s say his solutions are…complicated.

He floats a few ideas:

1. Cap Interest Rates: Easy enough. Cap the interest rates lenders can charge. There are established models for this (and it could help cut down on the scourge of predatory lending that keeps folks stuck in a debt spiral).
2. My First Crazier Idea: Allow People to Borrow Directly from the Fed. Picture borrowing directly from the central bank, rather than through middlemen (banks), and possibly at a lower cost. Sounds idyllic but also pretty freaking smart.
3. Bring Back the Golden Rule: Okay, this is less a policy and more a platitude. Treat others the way you would want to be treated. That is sweet, I guess, but in a world populated by those with the view that “greed is good,” does it cut the mustard?
4. Be Generous: Again, nice sentiment. Be generous with your money, especially if you have a lot of it. Again, though, this is like asking a person to mend a breech.
5. The Big One: A Global Jubilee. This is the nuclear option. One step would be to eradicate all global debt — $300 trillion wipes out, just like that. How? Print the money. That amounts to, in words of one or two syllables, but taken more literally, allowing central banks to print $300 trillion and pay off every lender in the world — perfect! (Debt Jubilee par excellence!)

However, wait before you get ahead and picture a world full of instant millionaires. There are, of course, a million caveats for all this – be sure to warn people and maybe implement some price controls deus ex machina-style for a while if necessary; have a plan in place to “restore confidence,” etc. However, he concedes that these ideas are half-baked.

Bloomberg describes this last point as “lamentably undercooked.” And honestly? They are not wrong. It reads more like a desperate wish than a well-thought-out policy plan—an admission that the existing system is flawed, but also clueless about how to implement a correction.

What Vigna Thinks

To be clear, he is not a raving lunatic calling for the overthrow of capitalism (although something has to be seriously wrong with him for what is not at all subtle subtext). He is no dewy-eyed romantic nostalgist dreaming of the olden days when trains ran on time (which they did, and did not).

He is one of those who believes that value and meaning in our society are undergoing a tectonic shift. He describes a world in which the pursuit of wealth is no longer just a financial endeavor, but also a means to achieve status. Moreover, he is worried.

He fears that we have lost… something. That is probably because, in our haste to idolize all that is electric green about the power of money, we have removed what used to be other paths humans took toward purpose and community and tiny acts of kindness. He says debt is not just a number in the ledger books; it is a category that we create to dehumanize and beat down those with little control.

What he is essentially saying is, ‘Is this the best we are capable of doing?’ Do we want to believe that?

The power of the book. It is not just about money. It is about belief. Instead, it is about the tales we weave of what life has to offer. Whether or not we can envision a world in which our success is defined by more than simply the dollar and cents.

Is Vigna a Prophet or Just a Guy With a Blog?

Admit it: No book this ambitious gets away with not having critics. Moreover, the Almighty has spat out a load of them, too.

First up, the review covers some of the main problems:

• Western Bias: Vigna is nearly exclusively focused on Judeo-Christian traditions and Western economic history. The rest of the world. What did other cultures think about their money, debt, and morality? Such a narrow lens leaves out important blind spots.
• Hyperbolic Rhetoric: The money-is-god – What….? A powerful metaphor, but is it accurate? The reviewer, however, wonders whether capitalism has genuinely become a “replacement religion,” or whether Vigna is pushing the metaphor too far. Is belief in the market today essentially the same as ancient belief in gods?
• The Ayn Rand Problem: The book concludes with Lucas taking a massive shot at Ayn Rand’s philosophy, but as the reviewer notes, who lives according to Rand’s hyper-individualism anyway? Or is centering her a red herring that siphons attention away from the much more nuanced (and far more frequent) tactics most people take in defining where their self-interest ends and community begins?
• Half Baked Ideas: That whole global jubilee thing you had in mind? Yeah, critics are going to criticize. That is a significant experimental idea, but concerning public policy, it raises more questions than can be answered rapidly. This feels more like an answer rooted in the helplessness of the situation.

These critiques are valid. No Life Is Small is grandly conceived and, because of that, sometimes unwieldy (185 pages for all the lives Vigna has lived sounds about right). He is attempting to condense millennia of history and a broad spectrum of complex philosophical movements into a single narrative. Sometimes the result is squished.

However, here is the thing: whether or not you agree with his conclusions and find his solutions unrealistic (as I do), the questions are critical. To get at the uncomfortable truth that our economic system is not merely a set of rules, he has to hold our noses and dip us into blood. It is a belief system. However, like any belief system, it needs to be held up to the bright light of reality.

Why This Book Matters No Matter How Bonkers It Might Sound

Just you reading The Almightier and wondering, is this guy off his rocker? Moreover, that is okay. You are entitled to that opinion.

However, here is why the book still counts, even if you think Vigna’s solutions are ludicrous or his metaphors bombastic:

• It is thought-provoking: That is the biggest win. It prompts you to question your values and beliefs about money, success, and ethics. It makes you wonder how things are and whether that is indeed the way they must be.
• Economic activity is embedded in social, cultural, and most importantly, moral fabric of our lives: We tend to think of economics as a lifeless science. Vigna reminds us it is not. It is deeply woven into our values, beliefs, and understanding of what is right and wrong.
• It Links the Dots: He diagrams suggestions for quite a long time, impacting what we think today. The Protestant Work Ethic, the ethicolegal moral trappings of commerce, the abhorrence of debt — These are not ancient history. They are the air we breathe.

However, is calling the status quo “an ossified system” just code for a call to arms, never mind against what? While his solutions may not be perfect, the fact that he is even raising these questions is important. It pushes the conversation forward.

Should You Read It?

For me, The Almightier is not a flawless book. It has got flaws. It has got blind spots. It has its moments of overheated rhetoric.

However, it is also important. This is a challenging book. It makes you uncomfortable. Either way, what you spend at least two-thirds of your day looking for (money) has evolved into more than only a means to an end. It might have become an idol.

If you are into History and Economics, Religion and Philosophy, you cannot afford to miss this book.

This is a book that will prompt you to think deeply about how we have arrived at a point where it is pretty standard and acceptable to use the term “greedy” as a compliment.

Want a clean, legally banal policy fix for all this? You might be disappointed.

However, if you want a deeply neuro-pleasing trip through the psycho-evolution of human belief and the god-like power we have invested in an abstraction called money?

Yeah. You ought to examine this e-book.

The Gods We Choose — An Epilogue

Ultimately, Vigna’s point is not actually about money. It is about us.

It makes the case that, fundamentally, life is not about science or logic, but about the stories we tell in our heads; about what matters most to us; and which gods we want to call back from extinction.

Money is just a tool. It is a means to an end. When they pursue it as an end in itself, when the pursuit of it becomes a moral — nay, the highest moral virtue there is [when “thou hast sinned against consumption (debt)”? Yeah, pretty much, then it has become their god.

Moreover, like any god, sacrifices are needed. It consumes our time, our energy, our relationships, and, worse still, sometimes even our humanity.

Further Reading (If You are Hooked):

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber: One of the few nonfiction books that offers a comprehensive history of debt and how it has influenced humanity. The historical view of Vigna complements the anthropological lens practiced by Graeber.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, written by Max Weber, is one of the pioneering works in critical sociology. Necessary for allowing you to understand the religious basis Vigna speaks of.

The Age of Cryptocurrency by Paul Vigna & Michael Casey: Another book by Vigna examines the future of digital money and how it might change the financial system.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: A wide-reaching history of humans, exploring how common myths & beliefs can rally large groups of people together (money, for example).