Maybe you can give me an example or reference? I don't understand what you mean.
So we invented a symbol, money, we all agree to accept and start saying "hey, for my chicken I want 10 coins, for my shoes 30, ... we can all exchange coins for anything else and the volume of exchanges makes "the right price" of anything, more or less, depending on various factors, like scarcity vs abundance.
Such simple system work well enough, have issues like how to choose a symbol no one can temper easily because if I can produce coins in my backyard I destroy the system for instance etc. Such issues can be solved by a public authority who decide an initial quantity of money, distribute it with commonly agreed criteria, check it's authenticity etc. Such authority MUST be public because MUST been unable to make profit from that money making/handling. Being public have no profit to make, those who work for such institution can't do that in disguise, their money is public, they can't have personal interests involved etc. They must be civil servant like in the ancient Athens where the police was made by slaves, they know if they act well they can live a good life, if not they are dead. Similar things happen in various European cities where the elected government must be formed of strangers checked for any absence of conflicting interests but rewarded enough for their role if they openly perform well.
Again, not perfect but work. Profit, A BIT of, is now a weapon to push people to act a bit avoiding the classic "if you get paid for doing nothing you'll do nothing" and similarly avoid those who decide to live with a purpose because we have various cohort of "people" in the sense that there are the very active who work "too much" ruining lives around them, disturbing a calm evolution of the society etc and we have people who do not want to do anything at all, various others in between etc. Being as society we need to find a best possible place for anyone because that's why we make a society in the first place, and we can bend attitudes a bit, but not more than a bit. In such democratic fictional society we need to pursue the common good without being against personal interests nor individual attitudes. The Roman's said "In medio stat virtus" (in the mean lie the virtue), the Swedes have invented the Lagom concept witch happen to be essentially the same etc. We need a bit of push to profit to avoid stagnation and dispersion but we need to limit it to avoid derailments where people start to live to work instead of the contrary.
Actually money are not like that: EU central bank is formed by EU States central banks witch in turn are formed by the biggest private banks and insurances of their relevant countries, the USA FED is equally a private institution bolted to the public government in an old scam. Only few States have public central banks but such states tend to be dictatorships not Democracies so again the public is the private game of the ruler... Money actually are lent to the public for an interest rate that can't mathematically be paid except if you borrow foreign money so money now is debt. Being the thing anyone want money is not The Value, the substrate of anything.
States need taxes NOT to redistribute richness ensuring a narrow enough fork between richest and poorest for the common welfare but to finance their operations etc. The entire economy is a classic scam due to this absurd distortion at the economy atom. Profit is not anymore producing something good and so get rewarded, being able to buy more, but harvesting money from others etc such system can only end if we agree that a society much be ruled by the people, a Democracy, not a classic Aristocracy, nor a modern Corporato-Timocracy nor something lead "by leaders inn disguise who direct the flock of people" (cfr. Gustave le Bon, Eduard Bernays, ...) like the neoliberal society of today.
I do not know how to make that happen, I do not know how it happen in the past, all I know is how to maintain it witch is the "in medio stat virtus" at any level, richness, welfare, culture etc...
Not remove, layer it. In the past we have had public universities and big "free" "innovation labs" from private those NOT managerial driven but just "we have big money, we fund some very skilled technicians who innovate on their own and see the outcome, something very nice for our business will appear". Such model have produced the most quick and revolutionary innovation we have seen in last century et least.
My view is: States funds public universities whose target is pure research, innovation for humankind. They do not produce goods, just ideas and initial implementations. Companies for their profits, States for Citizens needs pick those ideas choosing what to implement, sell etc. Private research can't really compete so there will be a bit but not too much to steer society in dangerous evolution, States having the biggest concentration of talents and research can surveil and make Citizens informed enough to decide if something is good or not.
> My take is that involving profits is a way to introduce rules and score keeping to the game.
Although in practice we have seen the contrary: some innovate better than other conquering certain positions, than they start killing potential competitors thanks to money they have amassed... IMVHO innovation can only be stimulate by intellectual means, push needs and rewards means pushing dangerous innovations,, something good can arrive, but also much bad things.
> right now, for example, we have a crisis in food production
And it's cause is only partially the climate change, much is due by for-profit market moves, where it's more profitable having big food players instead of countless small ones. That's why IMVHO profit must be contained, it's not self-contained because the ideal free market can exists, only if kept free by force, by nature it derive quickly toward hierarchy against humans needs... The main point here is that States as Democracies represent the sole real free market: the people, all together unable to really form a monopoly or oligopoly.
> It just feels like people who want to completely drop money or profit from this usually don't have a great plan.
IMVHO money is a very misunderstood topic: so far money are a kind of substrate of anything lent to states in the form of public debt; that's not "money" that's a very old scam, dating back from the '300 or even certain Greeks polis. Money must be a unit of measure of a substrate, determined, not owned, by the public, no private parties involved. A symbol we use to weight nearly anything.
If we made money like that, than profit change aspect: we do not have financialization much more than a thin layer because having no value as a substrate have no value, so no option for profit, at all. In that case a company can have benefits from good ads, but can't live only on ads, it need something valuable underneath etc.
That's the real key all actual élites do not want because actual money is the best way to keep people in line with soft tie almost no one really see and revolt.