Money is such a familiar feature of human life that we take its existence and power for granted. All countries in the world today use money, so culturally it is nearly universal by now.
Looked at from the perspective of nature, however, money is quite unusual. No species of plant or animal (other than humans) uses money. Money is thus a product of human culture, but it is estimated to be only about 3,000 years old (Davies, 2002), which means that early civilizations did not have it. It is much too recent to have shaped human nature biologically. There is no “money instinct.”
Clearly people want money, and many people work long and hard to get it. Attempting to explain this in biological terms, Lea and Webley (2005) started with the analogy of a tool. Just as animals ure tools to get what they want, people use money to get what they want. Biology has programmed humans (like other animals) to want things, so people also come to want money because it enables them to get these things. This part of the theory seems straightforward. Like any tool, money is desired not for itself but for what can be done with it.
