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Some time ago we moved from a civilizational economy based on primary wealth, like extracted metals fuels and food, or secondary wealth like manufactured items, to tertiary wealth based on symbolic manipulation of money, ownership, information and unequal access to information, that kind of thing.
In an economy based on symbolic manipulation rather than natural wealth or manufacturing, this kind of manipulation by the investing and trading class is how the economy works.
It's essentially a cyclical harvest of the wealth of the general population by the small percentage licensed to be the harvesters.
This is the world we live in. It's quite new tho - only a few hundred years old - who knows if it's a rugged enough complex system to last long.
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