I really like how this was framed:

This society has been arranged around using currency to purchase necessities, because some people decided that necessities are not guaranteed.

It's crazy to me that we've advanced to the point that we could guarantee necessities (we know how to grow enough food and extract enough natural resources to do so), we still hold to the above. And before you shout "Communism", guaranteeing necessities doesn't necessarily mean communism. It just means there's a floor that everyone is at, and then what you earn from your labor (which varies depending on the labor) is on top of that.