You've made the mistake of assuming that more wealth (economic growth) requires a greater quantity of money. It doesn't. Money is just the exchange mechanism. I

You've made the mistake of assuming that more wealth (economic growth) requires a greater quantity of money. It doesn't. Money is just the exchange mechanism. If the amount of gold in the world stays static, but we improve our economies it would just result in prices falling. If we could not find more gold we could still have economic growth, it's just that the value of gold would rise relative to the goods it could buy. (ie prices would fall) You can read more here: http://www.mises.org/mmmp/mmmp5.asp http://www.mises.org/mmmp/mmmp5.asp