The modern economic concept of tying wealth directly to economic output was a huge step.

What it stepped towards can be considered anything from utopia to irrecoverable disaster. Some people closer to the latter end of the scale consider economic limiters like deflationary currency (bitcoin et. al) and gold/silver standards as a good thing.

Who is right? I don't know if any individual human can, in the space of a single lifetime, really have the breadth of experience and insight to choose the right option.