The Fundamental Facts and What They Mean.
First fundamental fact: Economics is interdependence. We are dependent upon one another for the things that we need and want.
Second fundamental fact: Economics is not static. Most of those things are used up shortly after being produced. We are dependent on those who produce them whether or not we are currently helping with the production.
Third fundamental fact: Production always requires both labor and resources. The easiest way for someone to avoid his or her share of the necessary labor is to control the resources. If a few control all of the resources and many have nothing except their own labor, the few can buy that labor cheaply and claim its product as their own. The world becomes divided into trolls and elves.
Money is the miraculous lubricant that makes this all possible. But while money makes the wonders of modern industrial economies possible, it makes possible enormous imbalances as well. One could say, looking at it from an ethical viewpoint, that it enables great injustices. Although the purpose of money is ostensibly to facilitate exchanges between productive people, if one can just obtain the money, one can dispense with being productive. Money also facilitates the acquisition of resources; it helps trolls become super-trolls.
How Money Misleads. Money can create these injustices because the first essential fact about money—its enormous importance—blinds us to the second essential fact—that the stuff is really just trash. What is really important are the goods and services together with the labor and resources needed to produce them. Blinded by the glitter of gold, we look in awe at anyone clever enough to accumulate lots of money—so long as they did not just steal it—without considering whether or not they actually did anything productive or useful in the process.
I say that we are blinded by the glitter of gold, but the gold gets lots of help from its owners, who are never at a loss to find ways to keep us in the dark about the fact that we are being legally robbed. If we stop them from doing it one way, they will find others, so it is important to always ask the main question: “Does this activity actually add to the total economic pie, or does it just take?” Nevertheless, there are currently two main fairytales that the privileged use to justify their privilege.