Money can be counted multiple times because it can be spent multiple times. The parent commenter did commit what I believe to be somewhat of a misnomer by calling it “accumulation”, but a business that is earning more and spending more will contribute to an economy that feels richer, even if the amount of actual money in circulation has not increased.
Think of a simple circular economy situation. There is one coin and I have it. I grow bananas and you grow mangoes. I trade you the coin for a mango. Tomorrow, you trade the coin back to me for a bunch of bananas. Money is fungible so we don’t actually know or care that it’s the same coin, just that it’s a coin. The next day, I trade the coin back to you for another mango. We do this 100 times. Assume we are not trading for fun and actually consume the fruit. Even though there was only ever one coin, you earned it 100 times by selling 100 mangoes, and I earned it 100 times by selling 100 bananas. So you earned 100 coins and spent 100 coins, while I also earned 100 coins and spent 100 coins. So we collectively feel like we’ve earned and spent a total of 200 coins between us, but yet only one physical coin existed.
You might notice that people’s income can theoretically increase without bound as long as there is still stuff to trade for, even with a finite number of coins.
In contrast, suppose instead of trading the coin back and forth for fruit, I decided to hoard the coin on the 50th day and just eat the bananas myself. I’d have earned 51 coins and spent 50 coins. You will have earned 50 coins and spent 50 coins. My act of hoarding the coin has halved both our incomes because the trading stopped. Yet the number of coins in circulation is still only one.
Money can be counted multiple times because it can be spent multiple times. The parent commenter did commit what I believe to be somewhat of a misnomer by calling it “accumulation”, but a business that is earning more and spending more will contribute to an economy that feels richer, even if the amount of actual money in circulation has not increased.
Think of a simple circular economy situation. There is one coin and I have it. I grow bananas and you grow mangoes. I trade you the coin for a mango. Tomorrow, you trade the coin back to me for a bunch of bananas. Money is fungible so we don’t actually know or care that it’s the same coin, just that it’s a coin. The next day, I trade the coin back to you for another mango. We do this 100 times. Assume we are not trading for fun and actually consume the fruit. Even though there was only ever one coin, you earned it 100 times by selling 100 mangoes, and I earned it 100 times by selling 100 bananas. So you earned 100 coins and spent 100 coins, while I also earned 100 coins and spent 100 coins. So we collectively feel like we’ve earned and spent a total of 200 coins between us, but yet only one physical coin existed.
You might notice that people’s income can theoretically increase without bound as long as there is still stuff to trade for, even with a finite number of coins.
In contrast, suppose instead of trading the coin back and forth for fruit, I decided to hoard the coin on the 50th day and just eat the bananas myself. I’d have earned 51 coins and spent 50 coins. You will have earned 50 coins and spent 50 coins. My act of hoarding the coin has halved both our incomes because the trading stopped. Yet the number of coins in circulation is still only one.