I was surprised to learn that an Irish/French economist who lived in the 1600s to 1734 named Richard Cantillon observed that fiat money is a wealth transfer machine. This aspect of such monetary systems is named the "Cantillon Effect". In a nutshell, the people who receive such money first benefit most. Over the years, I heard explanations for this phenomenon, but wasn't aware a description of it was formulated in the 18th century.
This aspect of the current financial system is probably its biggest problem. Once a person learns they're playing a rigged game, they stop playing. Inflation, a necessary side effect of fiat money, eventually and inevitably leads to lower productivity. If you didn't get a 10-15% raise over the past couple of years you effectively got a pay cut because the purchasing power of the dollar is tanking so rapidly. Why work harder for something that's worth less and less every year?
This economic system is basically about managers and owners of corporations scamming people into working to add value to financial products, that is, pieces of paper. One great example of that is a "leveraged buyout" of some corporation. The owners of a corporation cash out, and transfer ownership to some new group. The cash for the purchase is created from a loan, then the workers at the company labor to pay it off. Their share of the production is naturally smaller than under the prior ownership because they're paying interest and other fees basically to just transfer a pile of paper representing the ownership of their collective labors to some new party.
Another big problem is "elite overproduction" which is a phenomenon noted by historian Peter Turchin. He realized it's a periodic problem. Sometimes the economic and political system of the day can't handle more "elites". It produces way too many lawyers, PhDs, MBAs, etc... It's just a good sign of underlying systemic stagnation and is a sign the "life scripts" of an era are out of sync with reality. There are lots of youtube videos made by people with an expensive, useless degree. When they can't get an academic job with their PhD in some esoterica, they imagine they'll get a high paying job in "tech" with zero experience or relevant expertise even though the tech industry is mass laying people off now.
IMO, elite overproduction is probably a side effect of overpopulation and real economic stagnation. There are inherent limits to the economic system and no amount of financial activity or money printing can propel indefinite useful "growth" of the economy so every economic system is growing in proportion to the population.
The tech industry grew for years. It seemingly fulfilled a 500+ year old myth of "the new Atlantis". Concepts like "the singularity" were promoted as an inevitable outcome of tech stuff and "science". The reality is tech is pretty stagnant and in fact, lots of tech stuff today is significantly shittier and less reliable than things produced in the early 2000s.
I think the "next big thing" will actually be doing less and wanting less stuff, making products that a are smaller, simpler, cheaper and more reliable, long lasting and easy to maintain. People will realize the system is a giant parasite and all their stuff is endlessly hungry for their time and energy.
