This article is mired in the old "gold standard" hard metals economy which is obsolete. Hard money economies cannot grow because 'money' is based on a hard commodity such as gold or silver.

Commodities can be hoarded and manipulated also- Humans have always "assigned a value" to so-called precious metals.

We can illustrate the hard money failure with two examples

1. Nations that abandoned the gold standard got out of the Great Depression faster than those that clung to metalism

2. Free Silver movement of the late 1800s- While they were still "metalists" the free silver people advocated bi-metalism, i.e. the USA was on the gold standard and there was only so much money in circulation and most of it controlled by eastern banking establishment. The economy wasn't growing due to lack of money in circulation. The FS movement wanted to make silver as a base for currency alongside gold, which would immediately expand the money supply.

De-linking our currency from commodities can lead to political manipulation, to be sure. That is why the Federal Reserve (which manages the money supply) is insulated from this to a large degree. We are not in a situation where a king (or a Congress or president) can simply expand the money supply as they wish.