This particular money laundering debate is very unlike the encryption debate. Actually, you could argue that money laundering is a very specific type of encryption, you're just encrypting the source of your income by adding noise instead of encrypting digital data.
Let's see just some of the reasons you'd use encryption:
So bad people can't find your passwords
So bad people can't get into your bank account
So bad people can't see what websites you've been visiting
So bad people can't see your pictures
So bad people can't steal your intellectual property
And why would you need this type of privacy?
So criminals and bad people can't injure you using your private information
So corrupt governments can't see what information you've been reading/writing/sharing
So you can have some assurance that your email/social media/etc accounts are fully controlled by you, and likewise for those you're interacting with
Now let's see some of the reasons you'd launder money:
So the government can't see where you got the money.
That's it.
And why would you need this type of privacy?
So the government doesn't know you committed a crime to get that money.
That's it.
People don't launder money because they're ashamed to admit they work at Microsoft. People don't launder money to hide their employer from criminals who want to hurt them. People don't launder money to hide it from other citizens. People don't launder money from legitimate businesses. People launder money so the government doesn't know that they got the money illegally. That's it.
There's a lot of legitimate reasons to encrypt various things, and no one has ever argued that encryption is only ever used for legal and good purposes. The argument is that while encryption is sometimes used for crimes, the good things it enables outweigh the bad things. But there's only one reason to launder money, and that's because you earned it illegally.
I'd also note that encryption is "not be something that harms anyone" but "often done to conceal actions ... harm".