Or they do but I feel like the gravity of the statement alone never really registers
Was recently reading a book written a long ass time ago by some Brit where he talked about how a lot of the value in currency (coins and paper of the time) came from the fact that they were all tangible
And now wealth/money is completely digital. Of course the fed still prints shit, but with the amount of people who use Apple Pay/venmo to exchange “money” from person to person?
Actually, does anyone know what I’m trying to say rn? Is money just a Trojan horse?
The value of currency comes more from the state enforcing it rather than tangability. It’s a bit of a meme by now because of how often I see the book mentioned when money comes up, but “Debt” by Graeber is a good read on the development of money.
Ever since the gold standard was abolished by Bretton Woods agreement, money wasn’t really tangibly anything. It used to be “I trust the government has a piece of gold they say is the value on this note stored somewhere”. Then it became arbitrary value related to a bunch of central bank stuff that comes down to moving numbers around on a spreadsheet. Now we’re moving money more directly on spreadsheets somewhere.
Money becoming more traceable as stuff changes to credit cards and apple pay is a different issue IMO.