You cannot tell your story using barter because it falls apart when confronted by reality.
What is your deal with barter??
I have no intention of attempting to reconcile the reality of modern money with barter economics because they are not connected in any way. Barter attempts to relate all things with all other things, which is why currency became widely accepted. Currency offers a base value to price things in commerce and denominate contracts.
With a fixed money supply increases in productivity (amount produced/hour of labor) would result in falling prices over time all else held constant.
That is called “deflation”. If you think inflation is bad you have not seen what happens to a global economy with a deflating currency. There is a reason the Fed targets a small inflation rate instead of attempting to absolutely stabilize the currency. Japan has been attempting to fight deflation for over two decades to improve their position in global trade. Their public debt is now over 250% of their GDP and they still barely manage 2% inflation.
Reality. Currency is a good like any other. If relative supply increases its value decreases.
Just plain false. The currency supply must keep up with economic growth or our position in trade becomes impossible to control. A strong currency means domestic workers can never compete without extreme tariffs and manipulation, which leads to isolationism. This is why we left the gold standard in favor of a fiat currency that could float against other currencies. Commodity based money is a thing of the feudalistic past, along with kings and serfdom. Even when we used a gold standard to set a fixed exchange rate the value of gold had to be set/fixed artificially and private ownership restricted.
Yes, a loaf of bread is 10x more expensive than it was in the 60’s, but that is not important as long as wages keep up. It is what one’s paycheck can purchase that is important, not individual commodity prices. What has hurt American workers is the forced reliance on private bank debt, not increases in the money supply. Banks create “credit”, not money, and that credit cannot be retired without currency from the government, nor can it be net saved. The “net” currency in circulation is accurately (to the penny) reflected by the “national debt” and any attempt to reduce that number, or even hold it steady with balanced budgets, also reduces the money supply available to net save and retire private debt, which destabilize the economy.
Every successful attempt to balance the budget (7) has resulted in recessions or depressions. This is because trade deficits and wealth accumulation present drains on the currency that must be compensated for with deficit spending. By tightly controlling deficits the working class is more reliant on bank credit to maintain living standards which only works while the economy is growing. At the first downturn in the business cycle the economy is further weakened by defaults and only safety nets prevent it from snowballing into recession/depression.
