A video explaining modern monetary theory and how with a little Marxism it can benefit everyone.
Money existed before the government started using it.
The idea that taxes remove money form the economy and government spending prints new money is an abstraction created for macroeconomics to simplify its models. But it’s a lossy abstraction, so don’t go thinking this is exactly what happens on the real world.
Fiat money maintains its value largely because the government will purchase labor, goods, and other assets without any concern for gain versus loss.
The state therefore generates demand even when and where private entities will not or cannot hire workers, make purchases, or invest.
Centralized, minted currencies definitely did not exist before states started using them. Minted currencies were invented multiple times independently across multiple cultures, but one of the biggest through lines between them is that they required a centralized state who held large reserves, and that they were, in every known case, used to support standing armies for those states.