I would rather not use terms like "evil" in a discussion of policy. With that out of the way, counterfeiting does not necessarily take wealth away from anybody

I would rather not use terms like "evil" in a discussion of policy. With that out of the way, counterfeiting does not necessarily take wealth away from anybody. In a depressed economy, it could just activate unused resources and stimulate production so that the overall amount of wealth increases by at least the amount represented by the counterfeit money. That said, counterfeiting is still wrong for the same reason it is wrong for you to hack into your bank's computer systems to increase the amount of money in your account: Society has agreed upon a set of rules that underlie the distribution system of our economy, and both the hacking and the counterfeiting go against these rules. Addendum: In a way, forbidding counterfeiting is a slippery-slope situation. A single act of counterfeiting does not necessarily take wealth away from anybody. But if counterfeiting were allowed, the whole system could not possibly work.