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I think this is a very important thing to study some more. The entire system is built on the assumption that money goes round, never sits idle, and is always us
by didibus 5y ago
I think this is a very important thing to study some more. The entire system is built on the assumption that money goes round, never sits idle, and is always used to productive use in terms of growing production.
If it's true that there are issues at that level, we really need to better understand them and address them.
If we make things very simplistic. If I'm the only one that has a spear and I hunt a deer with it. I cannot eat it all. I'll have the best parts and a good chunk of it to satiety. Now I'm left with a lot more deer leftovers.
If I just froze it and never went hunting again for the next 4 weeks, by just eating more of that frozen deer. Keeping in mind I'm the only one with a spear. That be very bad economically, what are the others to hunt with? What are they all to eat?
Now, the morgage loans are like if someone comes and say, could I have some of your frozen deer to eat? And I were to say, yes you can have a little bit, but in repayment you owe me a full deer which you must give me in the next year (which others will need to hunt by hand, since they don't have a spear).
Over time, what happens is all hunted deers by everyone goes to me, as everyone owes me a deer. And I now own all hunted deers, trading more of its meat for more repayment of more deers.
The issue with this is that there's always a surplus of deer, and yet everyone is in dept and only eating a fraction. In effect, deer production is wasted.
Another issue with this, is that it did not contribute to boost production of deers or anything else.
A better scenario is that I don't freeze my leftover deer. Instead I trade it to others for other things. If I did this, I create a market for other goods, and I boost the production of more things. Like maybe I trade it to people and I ask in exchange for it to have a second spear built. This allows spear manufacturing to grow, and also it gives me two spears that I can now use to hunt more deer with. Having commissioned this, I also enabled someone else to learn how to make spears, which they can now make for themselves or others. You could assume prior to that they simply didn't have the time to explore making spears, because they constantly needed to hunt for food by hand just to survive.
So this explained three scenarios:
1. Money is horded idle, where I just freeze the deer for myself and live off of it for the next 4 weeks until I hunt again.
2. Money is invested in unproductive ways, creating a dept cycle of the poor while boosting my own wealth. Where I loan parts of my frozen deer in exchange for a future full deer from others.
3. Money is spent in productive investment. Where I don't freeze the deer at all, I simply spend it on the economy, such as by investing in say spear making. Which both increases my wealth (since I own two spears now), but also grew the economy (others can make spears now), while creating zero dept. Well, or potentially dept was that I give you some deer meet and you now owe me a spear, which in turn was more productive dept. (Depending if the relationship is Employer/Employee or Investor/Entrepreneur).
Number 3 is where we want to be at, and I'd say is the "idealistic Capitalist model" in a nutshell. It's very important we make sure we remain in #3. The good thing about number 3 is that while it's very possible I remain the richest man, and in fact it might make me richer than even #2 ever would have, since instead of owning all the deers with poor deer production, I now possibly own all deer hunting production, mechanisms, know how, and the whole deer production has become much more efficient, and I can own it's whole process, and maybe even I've now ventured in other things. I've also grown the economy as a whole, and raised the standard for what it means to be the poorest man.
In that perspective, the gap between rich and poor isn't as important as the standard of living. The gap might be bigger than in #2, yet everyone is better off.
But again, if we're slowly shifting to #2 over #3, then it means that I am becoming richer and richer, widening the gap, and everyone's else's lives are just as harsh as ever. We don't want that, we want #3.