I think a lot of arguments put money at the root. The point of money is to remove context from the equation. The example is:

• I will bake you a cake because I like you, but
• I will not bake a cake for the king because fuck that guy.
• Oh wait he’s threatening to kill me.
• The king is annoyed that he has to threaten to kill everyone all the time.
• King invents money and taxes. Now he only threatens people who don’t pay tax
• He has money so he can ask baker to make him a cake.
• Baker now has no option. Money is effectively a proxy to violence
• Baker has to buy cheaper flour from his enemies across the river
• Enemies across the river get flour from slave labour and profit massively
• Globalisation.

So, money is the tool, yes, but it’s also how the king can be completely evil and get away with it. Being evil in non-fungible, but you can turn that into money, which is fungible.