Then you poorly understand the nature of an economy.
EVE's economy is pretty deep for a game. In reality the economy runs because people have a demand for their survival; most of the money made in the world goes towards food, shelter and the means to acquire food and shelter. EVE's different, because the players don't need food and shelter to survive, and the purpose of the game is to entertain.
And that's what EVE's economy revolves around, entertainment and the means to be entertained. And yes, that means you shoot big rocks in space, move the results to facilities to be processed, process those results to intermediate products, move those products to shipyards and then have those shipyards crank out ships by the dozens. And all of those things are often done by different people who determine their share of the wealth by demanding either part of the raw materials or a fungible good in exchange, to wit, money.
Many find that entertaining enough, and others then use those same ships to fight battles with either NPCs or with other players in e-peen lengthening conflicts. Because it's a game and that's what's amusing to the people participating in the economy.