Money only exists when it’s moving.

The title of this post sounds like a bizarre conclusion but let’s look at it hypothetically.

Money has value. But why? Where does it come from? The value of money is essentially psychological. It is a physical symbol of “trust” or “belief” in it by people. The more people that trust in a currency the more stable and useful it becomes. And the more stable/ useful it is the more valuable it is because it can be trusted more. It is less likely to fail.

Let’s consider a primitive community of 10 people who all agree for convenience to use one currency. It can appear stable for a time but it is not. One part of the community will be generally very satisfied with the currency and will trust it - these are likely the people who offer essential products/ have great command for pricing due to the importance of what they offer for example; architects and builders, doctors, soldiers etc. The other half will be less satisfied with the currency and trust it less - because what they offer isn’t as essential; Maybe artists, councillors, poets, etc. They don’t feel they are as valuable to the society and their income reflects this.

Consider now that this portion (3 or 4 out of the ten) unhappy individuals decide to just go back to bartering between themselves instead of using the money. The others will witness that their currency can no longer buy the art, seek council or provide entertainment like it used to.

This generates distrust and fear. No one wants to be the last one left with worthless coins that they received for trading all their valuables. Perhaps another sells off their coins and goes back to bartering. This causes a chain reaction making the money less and less influential and more untrustworthy until it becomes essentially valueless.

This is because the participants each have a big impact on the value of the currency because the group is small. They realise the money isn’t “real” enough or “objective” enough and therefore can’t rely on it to continue existing.

But let’s consider a larger community of 100 individuals and three or four unhappy individuals decide to leave the marketplace and barter instead. These people see that because what they offer (poetry, art, council etc) is offered by several dozen others also they have not impacted on the trust and belief of the society that the coins wont provide them with the service. Furthermore the remaining entrepreneurs see that a reduction in competition is better for them and therefore they are better off and have a higher income.

This currency is more stable because of the diminished influence of any one individual. Furthermore this money appears more “real” more “objective” because the marginalised group see everyone trading with it even though they decided not to. Therefore this money must be more permanent and therefore trustworthy which is likely to eventually attracted the marginalised group back into the competitive marketplace. It demonstrates they have more influence in the Economic group instead of out of it.

Let’s take this situation and apply it to the modern world. Imagine (though this would never happen) that a global ban was placed on exchanging or spending money. No one could observe the influence of money that comes with its exchange.
Suddenly all the assets in a wealthy mans bank are valueless because they can never be seen or used again, and suddenly the poor are no longer any poorer than anyone else.

Money only has value in the act of exchange. As the title of this post suggests. You may argue that money that isnt being spent (that sits in savings accounts Banks etc) also has value. But it only has value because the remaining “circulating” money is acting/ moving and bolstering “trust”.
If all the money in the worlds banks were to flood out into the market and be spent simultaneously (for example in a global existential panic) Then the value of the currency would drop to nothing. There would be so much supply and very little incentive to take it as real world objects like food, housing etc. Are fundamentally always more important than money for survival.