In the opening round Liberman, in the role of the opposition, attacks the popular belief that certain languages "lack a word for x." Interestingly enough, he takes a swipe at Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged
But this cute theory runs aground on the shoals of fact. If we look up pecunia in Lewis and Short's Latin dictionary, we find the gloss "property, riches, wealth", and a reference to Cicero's use of the phrase "pecuniam facere", which deploys pecunia as the object of the verb facere (to make).
To be fair to Rand, there was an important shift in the early modern period regarding money, which rejected Aristotle's belief that money was something "barren." This belief was the foundation of the Church's opposition to lending money. Even in ancient times people recognized that wealth such as cattle, (the origins of the Latin word "pecunia") could be created by human hands. It was only in modern times, though, that the view of currency changed from something static to dynamic. Of course this still goes back before the United States. I guess Isaac Abarbanel was being an "American" when he defended interest lending, contrary to the Church and Aristotle, with the argument that "money could grow" by being lent out for productive uses.