Suffering may be inevitable, and I agree it makes a better person, but you don't need a bribe or threat to hold yourself accountable, if that is your spiritual journey.
When money ceases to be withheld and is recognised as a corruptible intrusion metered out by ministers, will be when we cease to bargain with it, as it would be worthless. How will we know unless we try.
I realize this is an unpopular viewpoint. But... it is not armchair in its origin by any means.
I wish this ideal of 'no money' were so Alice - and believe it or not, we have tried this experiment as mankind many times. But the heart of man is incompatible with such a dream. The word money is derived from Latin
monēre, which means to remind, warn, or instruct.
In my 30 years of doing strategy, I have found money to be a flashlight into one's soul, the soul of an organization, and the soul of a nation - both for self and for others to see, and not merely a bribe nor threat, as you frame it. Money itself is neutral. Inside the face of money you see revealed the heart of mankind, or even a man, not the essence of money - and it is easy to conflate the two as one thing.
Money must exist as long as individual man's heart is corruptible. The removal of money will in no way serve to make man a better spiritual being. In Star Trek - they live in a money-less society. Aside from the fact that is was fiction, they had no families, no disease, no local evil, no calamity, unlimited resources, unlimited locomotion, unlimited energy from nothing, and a replicator and holodeck which allowed them to instantly fabricate their every need. Plus they were only accountable for an hour a week in total. They bore no 'ass in the game'. In my thinking, an advanced spiritual being would laugh at such a charade.
Never confuse the appearance of virtue for spiritual depth.
Grant me one miracle and I can make anything work in theory. Grant me a handful of miracles and I become god, without having served in its apprenticeship.
Working inside money-less cultures has demonstrated this to me in spades. Upon its removal, the focus of avarice/greed simply shifts to another instrument. High school is a keen experiment into this, what is bartered in those school years is an example of what takes the place of money. Then that new instrument (popularity, disdain, vilification, teasing, manipulation, blame, stealing, bullying, appearances of virtue, ass-kissing, gangs, protection, turf, sex, telling, vigilantes, drugs, cliques) - that new instrument then becomes the standard of barter. Why else do you think that police and military are without exception, the largest employers in a socialist society? People live in muzzled fear and despair because these pseudo-instruments are not held to account nor standard. They are easy to cheat, scheme and manipulate. Money however, is the great equalizer against human evil - if it is not manipulated.
In the absence of a single standard of monēre, fear and love become the essential instrument of barter. But mostly fear. This experiment plays out in developing nations over and over and over - so it has indeed been tested. If our tribe expands beyond its inherent circle of love - then fear/conflict ensues. We must have a way of converting this fear into a trade-able and manageable commodity and common interest. So that all can work to alleviate it thereafter.
For every action, ethical or evil ('good' is not a Wittgenstein logical object in this realm) - there is an equal and opposite reaction. Fame, power and gangs are examples of this pseudo-monēre which erupts in the place of money - And the measure for that reaction will always be tallied in the management of a human society.
There is and always will be a standard of barter. The issue (sad tho this reality may be) is to make the account/trade of this barter an incorruptible standard.
Distributed ledger and a synthetic standard of currency. So that no one person nor mafia may cheat the system and make
everyone else equal and destititute (the essence of socialism). Those with the strongest military (Russia and the US) don't rule by default. Those with the most minerals (Brazil or Australia) don't dictate from social luxury those who suffer versus live easy. Those with tons of crude oil (Saudi Arabia or Sweden) don't get to live lives of tyrranical worthlessness. It is this cheating today that you see embodied inside money-value-control. A desperate person who is held to account - must always cheat.
I use this principle in national strategies - "
The flow of margin (not money - but it is still measured by money) must be equal and opposite the flow of value". The things which cause departure from this principle are crime, laziness, greed, corruption, gross inefficiency, waste, neglect, arrogance, ignorance. These all show up as 'inflation' in the monetary instrument of that group inside which such foibles are exercised. Turkey is a great example of this today - a great deal of grey market trade fraud houses itself and its trading mechanisms inside the Tyflocracy of the Turkish Government. Their inflation rate regularly ranges from 30% to 100% as a result. Evil causes suffering. Money exposes this.
Money measures our evil and shines a spotlight upon it. Not as a bribe nor threat. What we choose to do with that knowledge, is up to us thereafter.
This is the riddle of money.