Open question
The world population has been growing exponentially for multiple reasons, one of them being that we have managed to generate the amount of resources necessary to sustain this growth. In particular, a very important resource is food, whose quantity, variety, and ease of access have grown at a faster rate than the population itself—so much so that we have moved from a state of “scarcity” to one of “abundance.” Obviously, each region is different and progresses at its own pace, but when compared to descriptions of lifestyles in previous centuries, most of the population now has greater access to food and can obtain it with far less effort than before.
Many animals accumulate fat to store energy, especially those that face food scarcity. Humans have also developed this ability to store fat, which, in a context of food abundance, is no longer necessary and has become undesirable. We have identified that excess body fat leads to health problems and, additionally, a body with a lower fat percentage is generally considered more attractive. In simpler terms, we try not to accumulate fat both to maintain our health and to look better. We no longer need to store fat because food is abundant and easily accessible.
What if we could make money a similarly abundant and easily accessible resource? Money is, in fact, abundant—the problem is that for most people it is not easy to obtain. Ideally, we would have simple access to money and would only store what we need, allowing others to also access money and the comforts it can buy. This idea comes from observing how so much value is generated by a part of humanity and it is stored by a fraction of it, preventing a bigger part from improving their standard of living. But how can we make it fair so that only those who contribute the most to the system are the ones who live better?