The following is an interesting video by Alan Watts on the Global Illusion with Money : The Global Illusion - Alan Watts on Money - YouTube
Also to be found on YouTube are the Zeitgeist documentaries, where it is claimed that money is effectively and can only be created by debt, which seems to imply that someone’s wealth is balanced by someone else’s debt.
Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash
Also from an accounting point of view, which uses double entry, it does seem like any asset you acquire can only be achieved by creating a liability.
This all seems to imply that the money game is really a zero sum game.
I’ve seen arguments that we can create wealth by adding to the value of something, but the bottom line still seems to be that someone needs to be willing to pay for this additional value.
Money is useful as a measuring, incentive and bartering tool, but it does seem to have its limitations in many other respects.
I’ve never really found anyone including economists, who can explain this properly and clearly.
There are many things as a species that we do not fully understand, so perhaps I should not be surprised that this may be just another one of those.
Though I would be grateful if anyone can offer a better explanation here, or point me in the right direction.