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As formulated by Rudolf Clausius in 1850, every thermodynamic work process, in order to take place at all (and any energy-driven, material, economic process is necessarily thermodynamic due to these very properties) must render an inescapable net loss (and even the re-production of one's own self, in a twenty-year production process, must be so defined).
This necessary loss accumulates down the labor and food chain, at the beginning (!) of which it must be compensated for, and that free of charge, or else this chain will immediately break: In the real, material, physical world, there is no such thing as "debt": something exists, or it does not.
What is missing in the end must be superfluous at the beginning - not just balanced; this primary surplus then limits the net outcome of any work process.
As long as this inevitable thermodynamic loss occurred "only" within the food chain, it was self-evident; a man had to be worth his bread, or he would starve.
Humans, in general, must take in 2-3 times the energy they can put out - which is around 1 kWh per day, currently worth around $0.50 (and the results of comparing human decision costs to those of IT electronics are even far worse).
However, in industrialized societies, humans pay each other sums vastly higher than their physical comparative worth would justify - precisely because the primary input is for free, and its deployment costs are comparatively low; while in non- industrialized countries, mean labor is still often compensated for by the proverbial "dollar a day", which barely keeps a human being alive; but, due to thermodynamics, even so is more than that being can deliver, running up deficits even there.
With the invention of the steam engine, that necessary thermodynamic net loss could be externalized (at least in part); and Karl Marx, as described before, in line with his adversaries, declared the same working people that were tendencially being made obsolete by this externalization - and not, for example, the working horse - to be the producers of physically non-existent gains - in the physical world, a loss; which, in the end, has to appear in the balance sheets as some sort of debt.
In truth, monetary wealth and debt always cancel each other out, and the reduction of debt is the easiest way to reduce monetary wealth; together they reflect the thermodynamic net loss of industry and labor, with its inherent and necessary mutual overpayment: This running debt must be "just high enough" (Ronald Reagan) to reflect a country's net ability to perform work - i. e. run up a deficit.
The result of this is economic disorientation, confusing abstract monetary wealth (used resources) with concrete material wealth (unused resources).
Though the various schools and teachings of industrialized economics will be taken as alternative religions (replacing the ancient God-givenness of things), they can, as such, provide no more than the same cryptic and uncertain future forecasts as did the former; on average, their prophecies and instructions may lead astray in every other case as well, making them as valuable as random ones in that respect.
And as before, apart from a few financial cult leaders and gurus, those win the game who recognize it as one and come to master it.
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