The irony of capitalism is that money, as a medium of exchange, functions as a public utility, like roads.
The problem is that as linear, goal oriented creatures in a cyclical, circular, feedback generated reality, people see it as signal to extract and store, while markets need it to circulate.
Econ 101 calls it both medium of exchange and store of value, but one is dynamic, while the other is static. Blood is a medium, fat is a store. Roads are a medium, parking lots are a store.
It is an accounting device that functions as a contract, so to store the asset, sufficient debt has to be generated to back it. Consequently much of our economy is based on manufacturing debt to back the illusion of wealth.
The elephant in the room is the capital market could not function, without the government borrowing up trillions in otherwise surplus investment money. The wars are just a malignant outgrowth of that. That's why they are so monumentally inept and no one is taken out and shot.
The functionality of money is its fungibility, so we own it like we own the section of road we are on, or the air and water flowing through our bodies. It's not our picture on it, we don't hold the copyrights and are not personally responsible for its value, like a personal check. it is a public utility.
Government, as executive and regulatory function, is analogous to a central nervous system, while money and banking are analogous to blood and the circulation system. There was a time when government was private and now banking is having its own, "Let them eat cake." moment.
There isn't the investment potential for everyone to save individually, but we save for many of the same reasons, so the premise of public wealth would be a logical solution, aka, the commons.
The problem is that a healthy society is based on universal responsibility, with rights as reward. Yet when our country was first being imagined, the irresponsible were likely to starve, so the debate was about allocating rights. Now we have a world where rights are presumed to be universal and responsibilities are optional. The consequence of which is the Tragedy of the Commons.
