But this money printing (or the creation of monetary reserves) does not produce inflation automatically. After living thru the '70's, this came as a shock to me. It still looks very weird for Japan trying to trigger inflation and finding it more difficult than they thought.
Productivity enters into the picture as technology lets people buy more for the same price or less. You can also increase the value of money by debt defaults - which have the effect of causing millions or billion$ to suddenly vanish from the economy. The growing centralization of wealth seems to be universal, even in countries with high income taxes. I think this happens because the riches created by higher productivity mostly go to those who own or control the means of production. How this situation can change without revolution, I don't know. Even then, nations such as Venezuela have a horrible record of trying to redistribute wealth amidst the wrecking of their economy.
