What most people don't understand is that steem is a social network. It generates tokens by people "mining" (I think term "minting" is more apt for this kind of thing, no?) posts. Attracting new people. Generating good content, and especially a good community. In a setting like this reputation trumps any other resource. This is a lot like slashdot karma.
(Insert the joyoftech stip about slashdot karma here :-D)