Follow the money... all the way down to the ground.

1. The concept “follow the money” draws a red herring across the path of looking for a cause of extortion or greed.
2. Looking for the source of money requires starting at its origins not the middle, 
3. Money represents the value of labor (somewhat like the calories—joules—required to maintain the physical effort of the body).
4. Labor is the energy a society assigns to the extraction of natural resources and thus the power to turn those resources into things
5. The value (power) of natural resources and labor thus divides into: 

• the power to maintain, and escalate the value of things (create leisure and wealth)
• the power to create the desire for these things 
• the power to distribute these things 
• the power to obtain these things
• the power to use these things 
• the power to isolate labor faction and diminish its power
• the power to extort value by subterfuge (the corrupt man is a straw man)

Feel free to add the finer powers I left out.

Again, saying “follow the money” draws a red herring across the path to the real source of money and avoids recognizing the overall abuses of power.