The entire economy is a system designed to encourage human activity, and is not based in truth of value. That builder borrowed the funds to build. It actually i

The entire economy is a system designed to encourage human activity, and is not based in truth of value. That builder borrowed the funds to build. It actually is turtles all the way down to the Central Bank, which dictates that money exists. Controlling assets is not the same thing as consuming, and money is designed to designate control rather than consumption. I can borrow money to buy stocks, which are nothing more than a promise of a corporate future. etc. People and entities do not have control because they have produced, but because they have controlled, or are part of the system that magnifies control to create more of it (through the banking system). We elect to accept this system of the government determining who can control assets based on a vision of human society, or simply because we cannot object in a meaningful way. We borrow almost exclusively from money created by the government. In the end we borrow from nobody, but borrow by means of a de facto authority. The mutual agreement of human wills is more powerful than any sort of temporal precedence. In that sense we borrow from neither the past nor the future. Of course you are correct that a large portion of borrowed funds are used to control tings that have already been produced. But the money is created at the same instant the loan is made. And it must be repaid by future labor or returns. Since it is not necessary for the money to be used to purchase something that already exists (and another large portion of borrowed funds are used for futures of myriad kinds), but it is always true that future results must be used for repayment, I think it is more accurate to say we borrow from the future.