&gt;capitalism is a system which currently optimises for money.<p>If that were the case then cash reserves would be where the bulk of people poured their resources. In fact the majority of non-debt &quot;capital&quot; is held in real-estate and some combination of financial instruments (CD, bonds, common stock etc...).<p>You are confusing <i>how the assets are valued</i> with <i>what is actually being valued.</i> What I think you are saying though is that capitalism is optimizing for having the highest dollar denominated balance sheet - which could be true, but I think that is a function of the people, not the function of open markets or the asset value function of assigning ownership to capital.