Money gets a lot of undeserved criticism because it's where a society's diverse values and priorities are made clear. Almost any time two people find that their values and priorities are in conflict they can blame the problem on money, because money is the intermediate step between one person's priority and the other's.

People who let money lead don't understand what money is, and they aren't likely to earn or manage it as effectively as they could with a better understanding. A society's money is its most objective measure of the values of its people, and acquiring it legitimately requires producing what people value.

This is also why it's so dangerous to allow a monetary system to become corrupted and manipulated. Corruption of the money leaves a society with a distorted and warped value system and tends to have a corrupting influence on individuals as well.