I have two friends who work in high-ish up in the finance sector, and when they begin describing in detail how their job works, you see why nobody questions it. It's an incredibly intricate web of cause and effect which depicts how so much money moves around and functions. Long term deals, the robust logic of money being passed around to control large pools of the stuff, which affects governments and countless services, pensions, etc...
They clearly see the absolute necessity of all of it and how without this system nothing would move forward, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
But when you begin pressing them on the core meaning, the core purpose of all of it... everything they think falls apart. They admit that yeah, it's basically arbitrary. There has to be some kind of system. The system has to keep working, no matter how arbitrary. Otherwise we have chaos. They have to submit fully to it, like a cult, otherwise it's... existential abyss. I guess.
The place where there's hope is in academic economics where a lot of front-thinkers are really trying to challenge core beliefs. Does an economy need growth to be successful? Is basing growth or collapse on individual ownership and behaviour wise? Etc. Etc.
In terms of understanding the economy, it's basically this: it's all about prediction. Almost nothing is based on actual facts. It's all how stakeholders predict their money should and will be shuffled around. The only reason markets collapsed this week was that lots of people were WORRIED various stocks would collapse, so they sold... which made everyone else WORRY, so they also sold... so the stocks DID collapse! The cause and effect has been connected directly to flawed, human whim.
It's madness. The professionals I know in the industry have nothing to say in defence of this.
