Not really a lie, just an agreed upon standard of exchange. Money has no value in the same way that a gram has no meaning...its simply a measure of value (or mass) that we all agreed to use to allow society to function.
Things fall apart pretty damn fast when the guy that owns the gas station can't sell fuel to the farmer because the farmer only has corn to trade, and the fueler doesn't need corn right now.
....no. not really. You are not going to get cows and pigs and whatnot completely free. You are not going to grow enough food to feed both them and yourself easily.
Capitalism sucks ass but its the system we live in. You can't just say 'nope I could make it all happen for free'
The value of money is in its utility as a means of translating temporal activities into physical assets. It is a method of accredited accounting and useful as such.
i mean yeah, this is true, but you should go and try explaining the economics of the stock market, crypto, or government debt to someone from the medieval ages.
The amount of exploitation of the market that has happened since the invention of currency as a concept is amusing.