The underlying root cause of the problem is that left to its own devices any productive monetary system always generates fewer jobs than there are people that w

The underlying root cause of the problem is that left to its own devices any productive monetary system always generates fewer jobs than there are people that want them. That should be obvious - people have to work to live no matter what, but business only needs to hire if there is a profit to be made. That power asymmetry reflects in the system we have. What you need is a market maker for labour hours that has to buy the hours of people at the living wage from anybody who offers them. If the central bank did that, rather than trying to prop up circulation by pushing loans onto people via interest rate targeting, then we may be able to let free markets do their thing. (Any business that doesn't like central banks buying hours need only make a superior bid to stop it). We run society at the core by exchanging labour hours with each other. If you are to use your finite time on this planet to produce A to surplus (rather than just stopping work on Tuesday when you've made enough A for yourself and your suppliers), then I need to give up my finite time on this planet in exchange for A - and hopefully produce a B with the time that you consider at least appropriate use of that time to continue the exchange. We have to set something like that up - presuming always we don't want to go down the road of entertaining philosophies that 'trim the excess population'.