If you purchase a rare painting with debt and it rises in value, the present value will be more than the debt. However, if you purchase, say a mobile home, it will be worth less when you try to sell it than your debt against the home. The largest factor in the continued extension of credit is confidence. Without confidence by consumers in the economy and producers in consumers, credit will dry up. That's what it is all about.
Bank checks are.
The difference is they are not pledges of future labor but for labor stored in your bank account. A credit card is nothing more than a mechanism to do this - a financial tool. If you write a check for the purchase and do not carry the balance on the card, the credit card has merely been a tool to conduct the transaction. Nothing more, nothing less. Overspending is not caused by the tool.