If money is just another commodity, then why aren't people haggling with each other at the checkout of every store across the nation? If I think my commodity of twenty dollars is worth the commodity of the seven foot apple tree in the nursery, then by golly, that checkout lady better be a good barterer, because I'm going to give her a hard time.
How can something that is an issuance be "backed"? All what you have then is an I.O.U. Which is basically another form of debt. You're contracepting the beneficence of the common good from happening with your transaction. Redeem this certificate for a nugget of gold. I.O.U.
Money has representative power merely from the principle under which it is issued, whether that principle is corrupt or good. And that principle does not "back" it, for the principle is what issued it - like seed.
Bad principle: the money shall be printed up, and rented out at a rate of compounding interest and it will ultimately represent wealth in terms of how many people go bankrupt for the beneficence of those that don't go bankrupt, because the money to pay interest on the loans (loans that account for the entire money supply) will come from the same place that the loans come from. (In other words, the money to pay the interest must also be rented, at interest.)
Good principle: the money shall be printed up and spent through a public work and its quantity will be carefully and transparently controlled in keeping with the common beneficence that its issuing represents, according to such things as population and GDP and thus it will ultimately represent wealth that is spread out and actually owned by people. Representation has a power about which we must be careful, and we are careful about it because we know it is a power.
Bad principle: this money shall be printed up and we will make it real by saying it has no representative power through the principle of its issuance, that it is nothing more than a commodity, but less than a commodity in that it can be unmade, and its reality and quantity will be decided by the prices that are set for a commodity that is largely owned by wealthy bankers.
This obsession with "backing" is such a protestant sort of obsession.
Is it any wonder that after seven centuries of prosperity under the tally stick system, the gold standard was re-instituted in England by none other than King Henry VIII? (LOL!)
While bartering is not economical contraception, neither is it propitious to any kind of growth of civilization which is the mark of Christendom.
The economical contraception of debt-interest money, of commodity "backed" money, and of a one-world global money, is a contraception currency by which transaction between parties is prevented from benefiting the common good - that is, from genuinely growing, from refining itself, from everything that is conducive to freedom.
It's sort of like the fear of having too many children and how are we going to pay for all of them. That's inflationary, so let's have the gold standard pill to keep our transactions safe, like safe sex. Except that in the case of the gold standard, only the wealthy will be having the "sex". But hey, at least the money won't be fiat. And that Hoover Hut - it will be a real hut.
Just as contraception has destabilized society, so it goes for the economical contraceptive of debt money; and so it will go, and has indeed gone many times before, for gold-backed money; and so it will go for microchips imbedded in the skin.
5 comments:
Just to be clear, bartering was never about whether anyone thought their twenty hogshead of home-brew meade was objectively "worth" a bay stallion and gilt saddle, it was about whether, at this moment in time (while the meade is ripe but unspoilt, and the horse in his prime) I who prepared the meade would rather have the horse AND him that reared and broke the horse would rather have the meade; the question was always "what is that worth to me, what is this worth to you"; and everyone knew that. If the checkout lady would rather keep her apple tree than take your twenty dollars, it doesn't matter that you'd be happy with the sale. Being subject to subjectivity doesn't distinguish commestibles from durable properties from cash.
The reason haggling doesn't take place much today (I see it at the local-discount-grocery quite often, actually!) is that dollar asking-prices are published each day, and most people decide where to take their money before approaching the market. The negotiation still effectively transpires, but there is comparatively little conversation involved.
"If the checkout lady would rather keep her apple tree than take your twenty dollars, it doesn't matter that you'd be happy with the sale."
What are you talking about?
"The reason haggling doesn't take place much today (I see it at the local-discount-grocery quite often, actually!) is that dollar asking-prices are published each day, and most people decide where to take their money before approaching the market."
Gee, thanks for telling me as though I needed to be told that.
"The reason haggling doesn't take place much today (I see it at the local-discount-grocery quite often, actually!) is that dollar asking-prices are published each day, and most people decide where to take their money before approaching the market."
Which goes to prove that money works as more than a commodity. Wow!
Sorry for my ill-tempered response. I appreciate your comments always.
I get impatient too, sometimes; and I know there's more in the post here than I'm replying to. But what I mostly mean is that, as a mathematician, I keep hoping for a sentence that runs "Let 'commodity' denote ..."; then I could try to check for myself whether the "..." was consistent or not with the nature of currency, and it wouldn't matter if "..." was or wasn't how I previously understood "commodity": I would understand your usage of the term. Such would improve its currency, as issued in your writing, if I may immitate an old coinage.
The purport of my interruptions isn't to tell you anything I thought you didn't know, but to remember what we do both know that highlight my own confusions, so we can get them cleared up, if possible. I really do like most of your writing here; I wouldn't bother, otherwise!
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