Using your standard the same is said of cash. It costs money to print it, labor to count it, etc. Currencies are almost always negative sum at least if you do

Using your standard the same is said of cash. It costs money to print it, labor to count it, etc. Currencies are almost always negative sum at least if you don't count the utility of the use of the currency itself. Maybe you can argue gold or something like that is excepted as it can be used as productive capital as catalyst for chemical reactions or as a conductor etc.