>>516594834
Money can never be the root cause of anything because money is always a means to an end. If people want money to buy X then X is causing people to want money and thus money is not the root.
In most cases the root cause is sexual competition. Men want women. In order to get women you must be more attractive than other men. In order to make yourself more attractive than other men you make money. This creates a rat race economy because everyone is just canceling out everyone else's efforts.
We start out equal.
I make more money to make myself more attractive than you.
This forces you to make more money to regain the lost ground.
We are equal again, but now we are working longer hours to maintain that equality.
This dynamic is how you get rat race economies.
Even if you personally don't care about competing to be the most attractive, this dynamic still affects you because all the other people who are competing are inflating the labor supply, accumulating resources, generating demand etc and this results in longer hours and higher prices for everyone, sex-chasers and monks alike.