The reason money works, is because it is a contract, where the asset is backed by a debt. Even gold backed currencies are the reciept, not the actual gold. Commodities, like gold, or bitcoin, where the value is presumably implicit in the token, can work as currencies, but it is difficult to regulate them to the size of the economy.
The real problem is that, as a contract, it functions very well as a medium of exchange, but as a store of value, it requires generating the debt to back it.
Nature and markets are cyclical and circular, while people are linear and goal oriented, so while markets need money to circulate, people see it as the signal, to extract and store.
Requiring ever more to be added and ever more socially corrosive methods of storing what has been extracted.
One way is squeezing money flowing through the general economy, requring it to run on debt and draw that saved money back into circulation. Which creates a centripetal effect, as positive feedback draws the asset to the center of the social heirarchy, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges.
Since the financial system functions as the value circulation system for society, 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 modern society lacks the necessary long term perspective.
Another method is having the government as debtor of last resort. It is quite evident, but unmentioned, that the capital markets could not function, without the government borrowing up trillions in surplus investment money. The bloated military and the wars are just a way to make it go away, so more can be borrowed.
The secret sauce of capitalism is public debt backing private wealth.
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, while fat is a store. Roads are a medium, while parking lots are a store. The hallway is a medium, while the hall closet is a store. The average five year old can figure it out, but economists only work for the money.
The functionality of money is in its fungibility. We own it like we own the section of road we are using, or the air and water flowing through our bodies. It is the quintessential public utility and needs to be treated as such.
Frankly, the government could tax out what it borrows and people would quickly start finding other ways to store value, than in their bank accounts.
While there simply isn't the investment potential to individually save the amounts we need to sustain a complex society, we do save for many of the same reasons, so the premise of the commons will eventually have to be resurrected. Along with their own, local monetary systems.
Which is not socialism, as societies need both public and private functions, like a house has family and personal spaces. It's more a matter of figuring out which is which.
The irony of our individualistic ethos is the resulting atomized society is more easily controlled by institutional authorities and mediated by a parasitic financial system. Networks matter as much as the nodes inhebiting them.
Government, as the executive and regulatory system, was private once, but as monarchs lost sight of their larger social functions, they were usurped. Banking is now having its own,"Let them eat cake" moment.
Which is not to say banking should be a direct function of government. Like the head and the heart, they are different organs, serving different functions. Which is to say that printing excess money is a sugar high and politicians should not be able to control it.
