The most powerful master is the one who rules unseen and unmentioned. In modern societies, the money system is that master.

Dr. David C. Korten worked for more than thirty-five years in preeminent business, academic, and international development institutions. Served for five and a half years as a faculty member of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business, where he taught in Harvard’s middle management, MBA, and doctoral programs.

David C Korten wrote in July 2011;

http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/liberate-america

Most people use money every day and rarely think to ask: “What is money? Where does it come from? Who decides who gets it and for what purpose?”

Money is essential to modern commerce as a medium of exchange. In earlier days, money took the form of material objects. As commerce grew, certificates redeemable in gold became popular. Most contemporary money is no more than a number stored on a computer hard drive and has value only because people agree to accept it in exchange for things of real value, like their labor:
The fact that most money is nothing but a number is not necessarily a problem, so long as we are clear that money itself has no intrinsic value and structure the money creation process to facilitate beneficial exchanges that build the real wealth of individuals, families, communities, and nature. The fact that money is only a system of accounting entries becomes a serious problem when the economy is managed to make the inflation of financial assets its defining purpose and a few individuals are allowed to game the system to enrich themselves free from the exertions of contributing to the production of real wealth.
“The most powerful master is the one who rules unseen and unmentioned. In modern societies, the money system is that master. Those who control the creation and allocation of money control the nation’s values and priorities.
When the system gives to an elite group of private bankers the power to determine who has access to money and who does not, it renders democracy impotent and virtually assures an extreme and growing gap between the profligate few and the desperate many. When the citizenry is uneducated in the nature of money and the implications of money system design, it is powerless to resist.
Our common future depends on educating ourselves regarding the true nature of money and the implications of the structure of the institutional system by which it is created and allo­cated. Only then will we create a democratically accountable money system that operates as our servant, not our master.”