The 2008 crisis has forced a long awaited rethinking of the economics theoretical foundations. Given the preeminence of rational behavior as a basis for economic thinking, its critiques mushroomed. This is especially true in the theory of finance, where behavioral economics has emerged as a supposed alternative to conventional paradigm. We analyze the long history of the attempts to ground economics on psychological bases from Bentham on, exposing the theoretical and ideological motivations of this curious relationship. Then we analyze the connections with the present incarnation of the relationship and we explain why it is a further attempt to save the homo economicus framework with no possibilities to explain the basic dynamics of modern capitalism. We deepen its limitations in terms of general economic trends, and its inevitable development towards a more entrenched reductionism (neuronomics). Having objected to the need of economic theory for a psychological anchor point, we propose to start the economic discourse from a Bentham intuition: utility and pleasure can be reduced (or better regarded as) to money. Instead of building an entire use-value paradigm as the GEE does, where money has no role, we propose to put money at the root of every economic discussion avoiding psychological residuals. Money can be seen as the endogenous structure around which the analysis of the theory of value, economic cycles and the dynamics of the system can be organized. It allows to overcome the dead end of micro-founded paradigms but also the contradictions of the classical theory of value. It also allows to understand the link between the “discoveries” of psychology (such as cognitive biases) and how financial markets work. A money-based economic theory allows for a deep understanding of modern finance and for an assessment of 2008 crisis as its most genuine offspring.