You really ought to read Stephanie Kelton's very-accessible book, The Deficit Myth. What we call "money" is, at bottom, simply a set of widely-distributed toke

You really ought to read Stephanie Kelton's very-accessible book, The Deficit Myth. What we call "money" is, at bottom, simply a set of widely-distributed tokens that we use in lieu of centralized bookkeeping. When you accept any kind of money, including gold, in return for goods given or services rendered, you're trusting that you can in turn use the money in the future to acquire goods or services yourself, in a quantity you find acceptable. As long as price increases remain "reasonable" (EDIT: for whatever value of reasonable is politically feasible), it really doesn't matter how much money is in the system. The central thesis of MMT, as I understand it, is something like this: 1) The economy will often have greater capacity to produce goods and services than it is currently doing (i.e., additional supply could exist). 2) Society will often have people willing to buy additional goods and services if produced and they had the money (i.e., additional demand could exist). 3) When both additional supply and additional demand could exist, it makes sense for the government to "print money" and put it in the hands of the people who would spend it if they had it; that way, those people can buy additionally-produced goods and services and so keep more workers and assets productively employed. 4) Ideally, this will also increase our productive capacity still further, in a virtuous cycle. Chapter 3 of The Deficit Myth is online at https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/the-deficit-myth https://www.milkenreview.org/articles/the-deficit-myth — excerpt: "When I arrived in Washington in 2015, I was the only staffer on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee who looked at the world through the lens of a currency issuer. I knew the federal government wasn’t like a household or a private business. I knew Uncle Sam could never run out of money. I knew that inflation, rather than insolvency, was the relevant punishment for overspending. I also knew I was alone in this thinking." (Emphasis added.) Kelton also has a piece at https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/its-oooooooooooooo-big?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cta https://stephaniekelton.substack.com/p/its-oooooooooooooo-bi...