I agree that the analogy between money and energy is very direct. In textbooks money is typically defined as a store of value and a medium of exchange. Certainly this is true. But the analogy becomes clearer when we consider that the "value" that money represents is “work”: the monetary value of goods and services is tied to the amount of work required to produce them or obtain them. When we exchange real goods and services for money we are exchanging past work for future work—or you might say, actual work for potential work. Money is a means to transfer work between people by transforming work between actual and potential states in time.
In physics, “work” is defined as the transfer of energy between objects, and energy is defined as the capacity to do work. Then the analogy between money and energy becomes even clearer: as a medium of exchanging work, the “value” represented by money is the “capacity to do work” — that is, “energy”. Money is thereby a means to transfer energy between people by transforming energy between actual and potential states in time.
We can extend the analogy even further by considering the physical definition of power as the rate of work performed in time. To the degree that money is potential energy—that is, the potential capacity do work, money is indeed (potential) power.
I really enjoyed your article and your exploration of the mapping between social (ie informational) and physical realms through thermodynamics. I will continue to mull the ideas in this article and try to share further thoughts later.
