Does Money ‘Grow on Trees’?

One refrain is that money doesn’t grow on trees—which is obvious mockery—and that the ‘leftists’ who think that it does are naive fools with their belief in limitless funds to support socialised programs. Socialised programs, once established, do tend towards ballooning out to being a huge amount of a government’s budget, and the question of how it’s going to be paid for should naturally arise.

If money doesn’t grow on trees, where does it come from then? It certainly doesn’t come from making a product or harvesting something and taking it to market for sale because this could only get the seller some of the money that is already in circulation. When we harvest produce or create a product or service, we have to purchase other products and services—essentially engage in consumption—in order to bring the product or service to market; this generates the circulation of money throughout the process, but this doesn’t create money....

So where does money come from? Money does actually grow on trees, as long as we’re talking about the ‘responsible’ financial institutions that are positioned to engage in the creation of money through expansionary monetary policy (links below). Increasing the money supply promotes growth in the economy, which neoliberalism is addicted to; it’s also addicted to population growth as this provides a basic stimulus for expansionary monetary policy that supports the hoped-for growth of consumption, which uses individuals as loci for the circulation of money through consumerism.

We the people aren’t responsible for the creation of money. We can only use the money that’s in circulation and try to get some more of the limited supply ... as well as some more of the new supply being added by through monetary policy. The problem with this is that we may suffer from the inflation rate. Upward social mobility is the quick fix for this personally, plus waiting for the ‘cheapening’ of certain products, but upward social mobility beyond relative positioning is out of the question for many people.

This brings me back to the question of whether socialised programmes can keep expanding? Within the context of growth, they can; however, within the broader context of a neoliberal economy backed by the monetary policies of the financial institutions, socialised programmes need to be kept in check.

Nevertheless, the means of production is not intrinsically attached to human labour; the means of production is a technological system that makes humans relatively dispensable through innovation. We consume our jobs and our jobs consume us. If we can be replaced by another person, we can be replaced by a robot or some other innovation. In this regard, socialised programmes may experience growth while the means of production experiences disruptive technological change. It’s up to the governments and the financial institutions to keep this in check; there’s little we can do about it, particularly if we become made redundant en masse. I’m not defending it.

Money grows on trees and socialised programmes can continue to grow as long as the means of production and consumption continues to grow, and, importantly, as long as the means of production is subject to disruption and its workforce to displacement.

We’re each left with the task of negotiating the territory as the constant stream of disruptions roll out and attempt to deterritorialise us....

Links:

https://education.howthemarketworks.com/how-is-money-created/

https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-monetary-policy-objectives-types-and-tools-3305867

https://www.thebalance.com/what-are-treasury-bills-notes-and-bonds-3305609