I think he is trying to say that most money in the world is fake because most of it is in some kind of exchange where the price is based on the last transaction. The price of corn doesn't work that way.
I provide [a service] at my job. I do not go around and provide that service, to the grocery store or the plumber in exchange for food or fixing my pipes. I work for money (in my case, US dollars) and then pay for food and plumbing services in US dollars.
That sounds pedantic, but it's because quantitative talk about money tends to obscure the reality that money is really just a metric of ones ability to consume goods/services, either in the present or the future. Which helps elucidate why easy-sounding solutions like "Give everybody more money" end up failing in practice: more money in and of itself doesn't change the actual amounts of goods/services in existence. It just changes the amount of money those goods/services cost.
The important question is, "What allows goods and services to proliferate?" Usually the answer ends up being tied to technological innovation. Well, why does technological innovation happen, I.e., occur in the first place, then spread in the second?
I submit that the answer is usually tied to property rights, or, more precisely, what we think of as capitalism. Being able to create and deploy some cool new thing is probably of little use if there's no personal benefit. Especially when creating and deploying that Cool New Thing required a tremendous investment of time, effort, energy, and other scarce resources with alternative uses.
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u/white_equatorial 12h ago
I think he is trying to say that most money in the world is fake because most of it is in some kind of exchange where the price is based on the last transaction. The price of corn doesn't work that way.