I’m a supporter of a pure fiat based money system. And yes it like fractional reserve banking does take a responsible government to contain inflation.. making decisions based on the long run. Which I’m not sure democracies can ever really do. It may be that democracy is just not a sustainable political ideology.
We don’t need to create money as debt. But that is what we have today. If we were to reduce debt ever, the money supply would dramatically shrink, and deflation would take over. If we got rid of all debt, we’d actually go into negative money as we had to pay the interest payments too.. Which are not created when the debt is created.
So the only way is exponentially increasing debt. Which is what we have now.. and if our productivity continues to grow and thus our economic output, our children will be exponentially further in debt then we are. Its a system that eventually peaks out.
A pure fiat system however, that is how Julius Cesaer built the great works of Rome, some still standing to this day! Those could never be justified in a debt backed system where things must start showing return quickly to cover the interest.