This isn't too far off from the point that David graeber makes in debt: the first 5000 years

I think this is a rosy-eyed view. Money is a formalised manifestation of debt, which previously was an informal system of reciprocity and altruism. But formalising this debt with financial and monetary systems destroyed the altruistic part of the arrangement.

Graeber explains how money was created by states to enforce its authority and basically coerce people into participation. The anonymity of monetary debt and the fact that the system is controlled by the "powers that be" make it kind of the opposite of altruism.

I thought that "darkness" was slyly implied in the dawkins quote

Maybe not in the quote above but the full Dawkins piece it was taken from is dark enough https://dizzynomics.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/money-as-a-form...

Strongly reminds me of https://ncase.me/trust/

Thanks for the link, really interesting stuff.

This is an amazingly refined definition.