The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is an old book by Robert Tressel, whose real name was Robert Noonan. This has been a very important book to me and probably to many other people.
The money trick is a chapter in the book. It describes how land first fell into the possession of the few.
The main points would be; The toughest person would beat up all challengers to become the leader of a group. This process continued and grew from gang size to clan/tribe/nation size etc. The reward for the few was always control/ownership of land and its resources, despite the fact it was the majority that fought the battles. This system makes perfect sense if you consider our Darwinian 'law of the jungle' beginnings. Animals will fight other animals to steal their kill or gain access or control over areas of high resource etc. It's also logical that when leaders reach the status of 'Don' or 'Chief' or 'King' etc that they would eventually do less of the fighting themselves and send out subordinates to do it for them and reward them with land and titles such as 'Earl' and 'Duke' etc.
Once the 'few' owned the best land etc. They would employ/force large numbers of 'their subjects,' (named slaves, peasants, serfs etc). To 'work the land.' The produce would then be owned by the landowner and be consumed by them and their nearest and dearest to a gluttonous level. The rest would be stored (warehoused) for the purposes of trade etc and those who produced the material would be 'paid' at a subsistence level only. There would often come times when the warehouses were full or trade was interrupted etc and peasants were thrown off the land by the landowners. They had no storage of resources so would often starve and die or become part of the masses of 'poor'.

The money trick refers to the invention of money, as a means of exchange in order to maintain the system described above. Individual humans in the category of 'poor' would, of course, find this system unfair and would often rebel against it. Sometimes they would get slaughtered and sometimes they would succeed and their lives would improve a little. The justice of this system has been debated since it emerged from the consequences of our experiences in the wild. Religion was invented by the rich/rulers to justify their actions and socialism was created by the poor to justify their actions.
They battle to this day.
Some socialist imagery was used in religious fables to confuse the cause of the poor. 'Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the KINGDOM(notice the reference to the divinity of the word KING) of heaven' and the idea that 'Rich should help poor through 'Alms' or charity.' The poor woman putting a copper coin in the collection box means so much more than the rich rolling many gold coins into the same box.' In my opinion, these are all ways to detract the poor from their goal of economic equality as a birthright rather than ONLY EXISTING within the gift of rich. ONLY THEY will decide to award such to individual members of the poor. Meanwhile, the poor must accept their reward will come to them in heaven AFTER THEY ARE DEAD!

I think that today, religion is getting replaced by the 'culture of celebrity,' as the main weapon against the progress of the poor against the rich.

The rich have hijacked the concepts of entrepreneurship, hard work, personal innovation, individual progression, individual choice and even 'freedom' and suggest that these highly prized aspects of the human psyche will be subdued or will be absent in any system of 'economic equality.' In the West, they mainly cite examples such as China or Russia as bogeyman-type examples of the dangers involved. Both of these systems became dictatorial, early in their development and are not in any way, socialist.
My socialism has to be democratic and strongly humanist, and full of adequate checks and balances.

I know that what I am about to suggest, will come across as a totally naive example but I don't think it is, from the standpoint of 'hope for the future.' and 'there has to be a better way.'
The societal system put forward by Gene Roddenberry and others in Star Trek and other stories suggests an existence without money or rich humans and poor humans. A society whose main goal is the pursuit of new knowledge of understanding. The concepts of entrepreneurship, hard work, personal innovation, individual progression, individual choice and 'freedom all exist and flourish within the 'Star Trek' world but there is economic equality without religion and with little interest in celebrity, established.

Maybe I should have titled this thread, 'is the star trek picture of human society better than our current reality?' You can use that starting point if you wish. The Star Trek Universe is certainly still portrayed as a dangerous place but would it be vastly better than our current Universe?

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and (Star Trek) are contributors to my Atheism and Socialism, as was Carl Sagan and 'Cosmos.' I consider raw capitalism and celebrity-driven culture as the two most regressive aspects of our current system.