Thanks! Yes, it is an abstraction of work. That is certainly one way to put it. Though more specifically, it's an abstract representation of someone else's valuation of your work. Something like that. People form a subjective valuation of the money itself, and then based on that subjective valuation they distribute it to others based on their subjective valuation of the thing relative to their subjective valuation of the money itself. The problem with using "work" is that people can have things other people find valuable and are willing to exchange for money that aren't typically described as work. For example, money paid to a model is for the most part an abstraction of their beauty, not their work. Now if we think of it as productivity points it gets a little easier. A company pays a model because he/she produces more value for that company as expressed in increased sales of their product. The reason they give him/her money is because it produces more value for them then keeping the points for themselves does, as proven by the fact that eventually they receive more total productivity points than they expended on things like models :)