Thanks, PureX. I think this is a fundamental point where we see things differently.
I agree with you that money is the representation of resource. And I also agree that the resources you identified - time, effort, material, property, opportunity - may be finite at any given moment.
However, you seem to be neglecting the fact that with the appropriate investment of resources - money, time, effort, materials, etc - total resources can
increase. For example, if I spend a day building a plow, the world now has a device that can save many days of time and effort. On a net basis, total resources in the world have increased. If I then sell that plow at an appropriate price,
both parties can share in that increase.
You also seem to imply that the exchange of money - or resources - can only be a zero-sum game. But that's not true. It can be mutually beneficial and increase the "pie" for both parties. Going back to the plow example: if I have two plows, and you have two horses, our total resources will increase if we agree to an exchange - one of my plows, say, for one of your horses. The reason is because the value of horse + plow is greater than the value of two horses, or two plows by themselves. The arithmetic is the same if the exchange happens to occur in the form of money (after all, the money just represents resource, as you said; I could turn around and exchange the money you gave me for a horse, and vice versa).
In short,
both parties can gain more from a trade than what they put into it.
That may seem counter-intuitive, but that is the wonder of trade and how it is an engine for increasing prosperity. And that goes back for millennia, with the production and trade of all sorts of goods among tribes and kingdoms: food, dyes, metals, animals, textiles, lumber, etc. It long predates capitalism and it has contributed to longer lifespans, etc. This was, I thought, considered to be an established fact in economics and history. In fact, it's not even limited to humans - it is the basis of animal cooperation and primitive forms of animal trade, I thought.
This does not mean capitalism is perfect or even the best system - far from it. I am simply questioning the specific claims/assumption you made above. Do you acknowledge this, or do you still disagree?
Thanks!