[the8472]

storing them doesn't give you the same value. instead of enabling people to be alive you're now only increasing a safety margin for those who are already living. and there are rapidly diminishing returns for increasing the storage factor.

That's why it's categorically separate in my mind. For a fixed amount of people you only need a bounded amount of resources to satisfy their essential needs, which can be met with a relatively small fraction of the population's work capacity.

Everything beyond that is subject to drastically different dynamics where your want (not need) for luxury goods can gobble up a practically infinite amount of work capacity.

[metaphorm]

I think you might want to reconsider this. Arguably the first ever accumulation of capital in human history was grain storage in the ancient river civilizations (Egypt, Sumeria, Indus, etc.). Stockpiling capital in the form of grain reserves allowed these civilizations to shift labor efforts from subsistence farming to a more diverse range of economic activities.