I am not sure what you mean exactly? For those that subscribe to overly reductionist views of history, they are unlikely to be moved by "But you are forgetting..." statements. Reductionist arguments fall apart most often when specific examples that do not meet their criteria are raised. In other words, you cannot really prove that a more balanced argument is correct, but rather, only that a reductionist argument is incorrect in this particular instance.

The closest thing I can come up with (from reading this post, which is pretty scattershot) is the Marxist theory of history. Basically Marx reduced all history to one major and all encompassing conflict between classes. He suggested that at some ill-defined point in the past there were a lot of classes. Like knights and kings and priests and bourgeois and proletariat/peasant. Naturally these classes came into conflict with each other, and consolidated into fewer classes. There was also some mechanism for the recycling of the classes. So in some revolutions, the lower orders would sometimes destroy the previous ruling class. But then the leaders of the new order would just assume the mantle of the old order and start the whole thing over again.

But all this super reductionist theory is bullshit. There are few overarching theories in history, and none that even attempt to explain such complicated phenomenon as war or peace in such a large timeframe as ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY (or even just from 1100 ad to 1990). Instead most historians try to explain what they think happened in a given period. Its easier to argue, support, and accept. Even the Marxist theory (which I have just summarized in a rough fashion) has been largely discredited by mainstream history, and Id bet that most serious communists have also discarded that theory, given recent events.

I also take issue with your conclusion that war has largely been driven by the pursuit of capital and production. That may be and aspect of some wars, but not every war. For starters, the common man will never wage total war over the wants and desires of distant capitalists. Like Bonaparte said:

A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him.

If youve ever read about the history of capital and production, youd understand that its not exactly "electrifying". Instead war aims have to interpretable by the common man, if you want the common man's support. Lets take the American Civil War as an example. We all know that the Civil War was really about slavery. But very few Southerners actually owned slaves. So to mobilize all of Southern society, other "explanations" were required (and almost integral to the war effort). Even if that war was about "controlling production". And by "production" I mean the lives of millions of human beings.

But also, if we accepted that wars were fought for primarily economic reasons, it would be inefficient and counterproductive to fight total wars of absolute destruction. Take World War Two, why would France, Germany, England, Russia, or Japan fought in a conflict which annihilated tens of millions of productive individuals, and destroyed or dislocated billions of dollars worth of industrial materials (not to mention the resources that were wasted in building tanks, rifles, boots, belts, uniforms, submarines, convoy ships, battleships, planes, catch the drift?). And to solidly prove that point, Ill give you a perfect example of that destructive absolute war which wasted economic resources with wanton abandon: The Thirty Years War. It was a war which started over a dispute over the succession to a minor kingdom in eastern Germany, and escalated into a major challenge to the political status quo across Germany. It also devolved into a brutal war of repression and destruction based off of the religious differences between the warring powers. The barbarity of the Thirty Years War was largely (but not exclusively) based on the religious tensions which had existed in Germany in the 100 years since the Reformation. This war is widely regarded as the most destructive war fought in Europe, excluding World War Two. Certainly Western Europe. Almost 100 years after the Thirty Years War, Frederick II the Great of Prussia was still trying to resettle areas which had been depopulated by the Thirty Years War. This was a war which was fought over political rivalries which touched off a powder keg of religious and geopolitical tensions.

An apt way to discuss this is using a microhistorical and biographical approach. In the story of someone's life, are these people reduced to beings whose only pursuit is money and power? In short, no. Take it up one level. Are the dynamics and relationships between members of a family concerned only with money and power? Certainly, money and position have been major concerns of kinship groups for a long time, but you would be hard-pressed to argue that families are only formed for money and power. The same is true on a much bigger scale. Did lot's of people go on crusade for money and power? Absolutely. But what about things like the Children's Crusade? It would be silly to argue that everyone who went on crusade went for ulterior motives. Trying to reduce complex cultural, social, and political relationships and interactions to simple ideas is impossible, which is part of the reason why history continues to be produced.

Reductionist approaches to history discount most of those things that makes it interesting in the first place. Romeo and Juliet would be way less interesting if Shakespeare only discussed the families vying for power. Joan of Arc would not have been as charismatic if her only motivation was conquering for the French. If you reduce Dante's Divine Comedy to a commentary about the Guelphs and Ghibellines, you're missing most of the work.

Without nuance and detail and complexity, history is a list of dates that really doesn't inform its readers about the past.

Here are a few books you may find helpful:

(1) Alun Munslow. Deconstructing History (2009)

(2) Patrick Manning. Navigating World History (2004)

(3) Fernand Braudel. On History (1983)

(4) R.G. Collingwood. The Idea of History (1946)

(5) Joyce Appleby, et al. Telling the Truth About History (1994)

(6) Michel Foucault. L'archéologie du savoir (1969)

(7) Karl Mannheim. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge (1929)

(8) Martin Davies. Historics : why history dominates contemporary society (2006)

(9) Keith Jenkins. Why history? : ethics and postmodernity (1999)

(10) Richard Rorty. Philosophy in history : essays on the historiography of philosophy (1984).

Hope this helps a little. Happy reading!