Reply #63: Money is also the standard medium for labor exchange

[dmallind]

My house - one well below the norm for my income level - still cost me about 3000 hours of work. The norm is something like 6000 hours. I have no idea how many hours of other people's labor went into making the materials for the house and then actually building it, let alone the labor used up in making all the tools and transportation it took, but it's unlikely to be below the thousands. how do they get paid if I don't pay for my house? How do I pay for it if nobody will lend me the money upfront. I could probably buy a very much worse house with my savings, but most people couldn't. How are they supposed to get houses?