Seven great figures of global thought and art analyze, condemn, or glorify money in the form of credit, entitlement, or privilege.

Aquinas reexamines the conditions under which usury constitutes a sin. Aristotle, through psychological and practical analysis of money management, highlights the virtue of generosity.

Kotoku views money as a virus and proposes its abolition. Marx dissects the power of money, "the bond of all bonds." Baudelaire proclaims that "the world will end," but money will continue to exist.

Warhol narrates his fantasies with "bucks"; and Tolstoy presents money as a method of enforcement and tyranny. The essays in the volume "On Money" demonstrate, each from a different perspective, how money - aside from being a means of transaction - primarily serves as an institution and a symbolic consolidation of debt.

A book that the reader is called to read "by the numbers," as suggested in the "Introduction" of the edition by poet George Blanas, since "no mistake is easy to recognize after moving away from the cash register."