> You're still speaking in terms of our current system being the product of some immutable natural law of the universe.

That's because it is. Perhaps the prevailing mechanism of transfer (money) artificial, but what it represents is a fundamental law of nature.

Money is simply a representation of time and/or energy and/or physical resources: all fundamentals of nature.

> ...it's even more so [asinine] when you add the fact that the "accepted solution" to avoiding the dilemma is for vast numbers of the second group to dedicate a majority of their waking hours in the prime of their lives engaging in frequently unfulfilling activities merely to survive.

As opposed to... what? Hauling water back from a water source every day? Hunting? Tending to goats? Farming?

These are the fundamental obligations of all intelligent life on this planet in order to sustain their own life. However, we opt to trade time/energy/resources in exchange for someone else to engage in these activities at scale, and on our behalf. In order to do that, we need to be provided with a representation of these fundamental traceable values by someone else; in modern times such as the form of money.

> Start with the fact that to earn something implies that one is not otherwise entitled to it; thus owes something in order to receive it.

You're not entitled to it. Nobody is. Absent the structure we've formed in the identity of "capitalism", you are responsible for finding water, finding food, and finding shelter. You are not entitled to it; you are responsible to expend time and energy for yourself.

Nobody is entitled to "live" with no exchange of time/energy/resources. We only do so under certain circumstances because humans are, fortunately, somewhat altruistic. To care for the elderly, the sick, etc. is something we are often inclined to do, though there is nothing fundamental in nature that necessitates an obligation to do so.

If you'd prefer to not be responsible to some middle manager in an office while you send out TPS reports all day, you are (in most places in the world) entitled to change your hierarchy of responsibility. You may go out into the wilderness and hunt and fish and build a shelter (as long as it's not on land that someone else rightfully traded time/energy/resources to obtain). But you are solely responsible for your well-being. Do not expect that you are entitled to someone else's time/energy/resources to sustain you.

I understand that looking at someone who has more "stuff" or a more free life to do what they want would suck for someone that does not have the same number of time/energy/resources. But surely there is no fundamental of nature that entitles you to that sum of that person's ownership, right?

Unless it's just a "oh that's not fair!" thing (my kids say that a lot!), at which point a simple math problem would show that redistributing that wealth fairly (read: to everyone, equally in the entire world) would leave the poorest slightly better for a short time, and leave the more privileged significantly worse off, most likely forever.

That doesn't seem really fair to me, especially because it undermines (well, ultimately destroys) the elaborate structure that we have formed to create pretty remarkable stability in this world in just a few hundred years.

So, we'll all start from scratch, again... That doesn't seem fair to anybody....