The dual of EXISTENCE and LIVING.

People could live in the mountains with their partner and produce offspring that all live of the land and thus negate all costs of living (avoiding land authorities of course).

However living within the confines of society means you can't escape the costs. That's the game of Life really. To reach the top and gain back your existence to no longer worry about money. Which YES is alignment with your point that value exists beyond money.

Unfortunately most people aren't able to get anywhere near the top. Now we could argue that this is by design of the system or just because most humans aren't very clever.

Consumerism: that's the key.

We work for the man, then the man tricks us into giving back that money in many ways. Banks even long realised that giving people incentives to save was bad for economies. Stimulus packages are about consumerism. They only need people to be the cogs. Money goes out to the bottom and comes back to the top. Capitalism!