Intensity of the monetarised economy

I need to read my economics textbooks all over again. I'm not sure what the formal terminology is for the intensity of the monetarised economy, i.e., the process of bringing more and more of life under a monetary system.

The day-to-day economy of Moldova, for example, hardly used any money back in 2001. Where I live, without money you simply don't eat. This is valid even if you eat at a soup kitchen, which is ultimately funded by people who have jobs in the formal economy, either via donations, or via taxes.

In our apprehension of Mammon, I think we need to take into account just how intensely monetarised our daily-life is. It's one thing to be concerned about money in self-sustained rural Moldova where you don't need it, and it is another to be concerned about money in some parts of county Durham where you need it to live.

I'm just upset because the introduction of a monetarised economy on the shore of lake Victoria meant that the Nile Perch became internationally profitable and now countless Western mothers have blogs with pictures about how to cook filets of Nile perch.

Of course, the population on the shores of Lake Victoria which produces them does not work in the fish-processing factories and cannot afford the fish. It can barely afford the fishs' heads, if it's got any bit of money that is. And to get it? Well, there's always prostitution.

In fact, the whole situation is even worse... The fish heads need smoking, and as a result many of the area's trees have been chopped off. What's more, in order to transport the fish to Europe, investors look for the cheapest planes... Russian planes... which, on their way from Russia to Africa bring over discarded Russian weapons for whover happens to want them, and we know who that is.

This fish is the evilest thing on the planet, I promise. I know I'm only blogging about it years after everybody else blogged about Darwin's Nightmare, but this is just unbelievable.

Here are two statements from the documentary's director:

It is, for example, incredible that wherever prime raw material is discovered, the locals die in misery, their sons become soldiers, and their daughters are turned into servants and whores.

It seems that the individual participants within a deadly system don't have ugly faces, and for the most part, no bad intentions. These people include you and me. Some of us are "only doing their job" (like flying a jumbo from A to B carrying napalm), some don’t want to know, others simply fight for survival.