. but I have a bunch of sticks and a car.
I'm the loser in this scenario?
Yes, because you cant earn money. I thought it was obvious.
No, because I don't want money. I want sticks. If I can't make sticks or trade for sticks (or steal sticks) then I'm screwed whether there is money (capital) or not.
Money doesn't pile up anywhere unless there is no trade. If there is no trade with money there would be no trade without money. Therefore the problem you think you've found is not unique to "capitalism", nor is it really a problem. When people don't want to trade that's probably them looking out for their own best interests. If you don't want to trade for my car that's both your right and probably what is best for you.
Not magic, deflation
I have already explained to you that prices of ingredients cannot magically drop unless wages of those who produce them also drop.
Which they would in uniform deflation.
Yep, that's what "uniform deflation" means
Sadly for your fantasy economy, even if all prices dropped proportionally at the same time as well as wages, you would still have battle for profit because wages have to be payed and those who had more profit before can afford higher wages, therefore taking over the buisness who pays workers less.
What does that even mean? "battle for profit"? People are always trying to maximize profit. They are constrained by the consent of others not the money supply. Whether it's $1,000,000 day wage or $1 per day wage an employer will pay as little as they can get away with (decided by the potential employee pool) and sell for as high as they can get away with. On the grand scale what they can get away with is determined by their production partners, employees, and customers. If the money supply is cut in half and this happens gradually enough anyone who holds prices constant will be in fact increasing prices in terms of real value. Once this becomes significant enough to be noticed they will begin to lose bushiness. They either lower prices or go out of business.
This is true for whoever makes burger components just as much as for employees (who are selling labor for profit).
But if a buisness who runs into deficit simply lowered wages of its workers and prices, but other buisnesses did not do the same, the workers in that buisness would starve because all other prices would be higher than their wages.
Other businesses would have to do the same. Failing to react to changes in monetary value is identical to raising real prices. All traders (employees and employers) would react in the same way and it would be (and has been in the rare circumstance of deflation) totally seamless when it happens over decades.
And thats assuming you could lower price. Cost of production, machines and materials will not drop any time you need reduction in price of your products.
Not because "you need" but because "money is more valuable per unit" yes they must.
Billionaires aren't billionaires because they literally have billions of dollars.
No, they obviously have 0 dollars in cash, or just 1000$. I mean, do you honestly believe billionares spend all their profit?
I honestly believe that they never have $1,000,000,000 in currency in any bank account. If they want generational wealth they buy stocks or stable assets such as land, high quality buildings, art, etc....
If the average American homeowner has $200k net worth in their house in mid life (don't care if that's true anymore) they will have at most $20,000 liquid cash (in the bank). For the ultra-wealthy it's the same or even more extreme i.e. having a hundred million in currency (except in preparation for a specific large purchase) is silly no matter how rich you are. Maybe have 10 million in case you want to buy a mansion at the drop of a hat.
Paying people doesn't add value to the market. People producing things to sell does. Wages don't add value, working does.
Oh, you dont know? If there are no wages, people cannot buy anything.
Oh you don't know? If people didn't work there wouldn't be anything to buy.
So which can exist without the other?
Did people produce things before money? Yes.
Can people produce things without trading for them? Yes.
If I offer to pay someone a wage, does that guarantee I will get a product in return? No
You should be able to infer the truth of my statement from those questions and answers.
The only rule is that whatever unit of value I compute in has to show a net gain or else I'll run out of value.
Okay, so how will you pay wages 500$, and earn 200$, and not run into a loss of profit?
I can't. That's not the fake rule you implied. The fake rule is that the sum of wages paid by both companies is $1000/period then the sum of both companies production must also be $1000/period.
As you have correctly pointed out, that would mean no profit. The sum of the production can be $2000/period. This does not mean the market is headed for collapse or that we need to start digging holes to pour money into. It means we will buy $2000 of stuff from the market instead of $1000.
That can be in the form of personal wealth (which some might call greed), it can be increasing wages, but much more realistically it would be spent investing in greater productive capacity which would ultimately allow fewer workers to produce more goods, increasing their wages OR reducing the price of the product. Either way improving the quality of life for all. Not just a theory, proven every single time since the dawn of civilization, even when official currencies were not being minted and people were doing annoying and complicated weight-barter.