Part of the problem is that we are linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, feedback generated reality. Consequently we confuse capitalism with a market economy.
The market needs money to circulate, in order to function, while we treat it as the signal to extract from the noise of society and the economy, to try to save and store. Requiring ever more to be added and ever more precarious ways to store what has been extracted. Resulting in the enormous financial bubble consuming society and the economy. The tool has become the God.
Econ 101 says money is both medium of exchange and store of value, but a medium is dynamic, while a store is static. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store.
As money largely functions as a contract, with one side an asset and the other a debt, similar amounts of debt have to be created, to store the assets.
For one thing, this creates a centripetal effect, as positive feedback draws the asset tot he center of the community, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. Since finance functions as the value circulation mechanism of the entire community, this is analogous to the heart telling the hands and feet they don’t need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get.
The Ancients used debt jubilees to reset this dynamic, but after several centuries of colonialism and industrialization, the modern economy hasn’t yet reached that limit.
Also the government has been manipulated into being debtor of last resort. The capital markets couldn’t function, without the government siphoning up trillions in surplus money. Which explains why we can have endless, strategically inept wars and no one is held accountable, as their real function is to spend money, in order that more can be borrowed. The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
The functionality of money is its fungibility. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water passing through our bodies. As such, it is a public utility, like roads, and should be treated as such.
There simply are not sufficient viable investment opportunities for everyone to save notational value for their future security, but since we save for many of the same reasons, such as housing, raising children, healthcare, retirement, etc, if these could be invested in directly, as community assets and networks, we would have stronger communities and healthier environments, because these would be treated as stores of value and not just resources to be plundered.
