People don't understand that money is necessary to trade. Yes I know it sounds obvious but nobody even considers the following scenario.
Imagine building a highly advanced society on the division of labor and trade between people. No single person can do everything alone so by cooperation we will attain a much higher standard of living free of starvation. Now let's say the money system is exclusively digital and runs on the internet. If the internet were to shutdown and take down the money system with it, the standard of living would collapse. If people decide to no longer farm food for themselves, they would have to do so again, if they cannot start a farm, they will have to starve. All the things we take for granted would disappear.
Now, imagine a slightly different scenario, instead of the money system shutting down, all of the money concentrates in the hands of the 1%. For the bottom 99% the result is the same as if you shut the money system down for them. They would be doomed to poverty overnight. We call events like these economic "depressions".
The real world isn't black and white. There are different "grades" or there is a spectrum in how good money is at facilitating trade. The gold standard is worse at doing so than fiat but even modern fiat has problems and isn't perfect.
Imagine building a highly advanced society on the division of labor and trade between people. No single person can do everything alone so by cooperation we will attain a much higher standard of living free of starvation. Now let's say the money system is exclusively digital and runs on the internet. If the internet were to shutdown and take down the money system with it, the standard of living would collapse. If people decide to no longer farm food for themselves, they would have to do so again, if they cannot start a farm, they will have to starve. All the things we take for granted would disappear.
Now, imagine a slightly different scenario, instead of the money system shutting down, all of the money concentrates in the hands of the 1%. For the bottom 99% the result is the same as if you shut the money system down for them. They would be doomed to poverty overnight. We call events like these economic "depressions".
The real world isn't black and white. There are different "grades" or there is a spectrum in how good money is at facilitating trade. The gold standard is worse at doing so than fiat but even modern fiat has problems and isn't perfect.