the greatest technological expansions as you call them were made before money existed .. the wheel, the fire, astronomy, the invention of writing or buildings still standing for tenthousands of years and will still stand after our crap will be long gone .. .. to the greek and egyptians .. we have nothing that was not there before .. or in our time was made in Germany when it tried to become independent from the centralbankers .. Germany was bombed to the ground twice because it wanted to get away from the banksters and was successful with it !
The only reason for ending the gold standard was expansion .. conquering the planet .. quantity instead of quality and centralization of power .. or simply called globalization !
And also in the US the founders warned - but greed finally overruled them !!
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered". — Thomas Jefferson
But there is one thing you are right -- it would not be impossible for corporations like the BigPharma or BigTech to take over the planet, to force people into vaccinations or steal their reedom if we had a stable (national) currency .. this "growth" is only possible via global-fiat-money !