It's much more important.

It's both the measure, the scale, the environment, and the terms of exchange.

It's the simplest globally agreed on proxy for the transmission of everything that exists.

Thus money is a proxy for everything no matter how abstract or concrete, freedom, self determination, the ability to bring complex things in your imagination to fruition by enlisting the help of others.

Money is nothing but...

If I was a fish, money would be my water and my gills.

Language & Communication itself is even less than money, it's just air vibrating or scribbles on paper, it has no purpose or meaning but what we give it.

It's also the fundamental operating system and protocol of both individuals and humanity.

Money is the knot that cannot be untied.

Goodhart's law is everywhere and in all things.

I suppose in the context of this thread, we can look at the productivity of a system that includes money or does not.

A small system, like a tire production line, can measure its productivity in terms of money, which is outside the system. But a large system, like society, includes money, and cannot measure its own productivity using internal things.