As with all treatises on economics, one commences with the nature of money and the three purposes it serves: exchange, guarantee, and investment (as Keynes elucidated in his three motives). However, there is nothing quite like it in the natural order. The closest analogue is food . It serves as a medium of exchange (of energy to survive or procreate) and as a means of storage. But food is not an investment; calories do not spontaneously multiply. In fact, food is bound by entropy; its essence and value diminish with time . This victory over temporal decay is the greatest asset of money. It is a refusal to wither. Perhaps it is our ultimate pursuit of immortality, with power and fame being the earlier, more fragile candidates. However, this presents a metastasizing issue. If money only grows over time through interest and accumulation, it requires infinite space (or at least infinite resources) to occupy. But the physical world is finite. The earth’s carrying capacity is fix...