What is money?

[afterzir]

I don't have a problem with money being defined as a medium of exchange,

but it isn't always exchanged (e.g. inheritance, charity, etc.).

 

The way I like to think about it is with the following hypothetical scenario:

 

It's 5:00 pm and there is a tug-of-war.

Friend A wants you to go to the beach with them.

Friend B wants you to go to the museum with them.

Friend C wants you to go rescue people from a burning house.

Boss D wants you to work overtime for time & a half.

 

A is trying to persuade you with fun/joy

B is trying to persuade you with knowledge/wisdom

C is trying to persuade you with virtue/morality

What is D trying to persuade you with?

 

I think that money is a type of persuasion,

but I can't figure out what type of persuasion it is.

 

 

[Koroviev]

What person D is persuading you with could be different for each person.

 

Specifically to your question I'd say that money gives you the ability to do more things in the future.

 

Looking at it from a persuasion perspective it could be you're broke and can't afford the other things, you don't really like the other people, it could be a good career move for you if you show you're willing to stay late to help your boss out, maybe you want some time off later in the month so it's a good opportunity for you to use it as a favor. Could be lots of things.

[laowai]

I often think about this same thing also.

 

Money has no value outside of the confines of the culture it exists in. It's a mindset. I don't think money has any real tangible value except for being a control mechanism and extension of government. Money is a tool that gives people a false sense of security that allows them to facilitate their greed by allowing them to consume and thus feel empowered and in control when the reality is they are just prisoners to this mere psychological concept that is money.

 

Something to remember is Ancient Egypt never had any concept of money and instead exchanged tangible goods for other tangible goods; and that society lasted for thousands of years, showing money is not a necessity as we think it is today.

 

I think person D is trying to persuade you with fear/greed.

[Will Torbald]

I don't have a problem with money being defined as a medium of exchange,

but it isn't always exchanged (e.g. inheritance, charity, etc.).

 

The way I like to think about it is with the following hypothetical scenario:

 

It's 5:00 pm and there is a tug-of-war.

Friend A wants you to go to the beach with them.

Friend B wants you to go to the museum with them.

Friend C wants you to go rescue people from a burning house.

Boss D wants you to work overtime for time & a half.

 

A is trying to persuade you with fun/joy

B is trying to persuade you with knowledge/wisdom

C is trying to persuade you with virtue/morality

What is D trying to persuade you with?

 

I think that money is a type of persuasion,

but I can't figure out what type of persuasion it is.

 

If we're calling money words like "persuasion" I would call money "desire" as in the liquid form of the desire being exchanged, given, or used during a transaction. You desire my X, I desire your Y, and money is that desire given form.

[afterzir]

If we're calling money words like "persuasion" I would call money "desire" as in the liquid form of the desire being exchanged, given, or used during a transaction. You desire my X, I desire your Y, and money is that desire given form.

That is very similar to a medium.  On second thought, your description might not be similar to a medium but rather an ether that links everything together.

What person D is persuading you with could be different for each person.

 

Specifically to your question I'd say that money gives you the ability to do more things in the future.

 

Looking at it from a persuasion perspective it could be you're broke and can't afford the other things, you don't really like the other people, it could be a good career move for you if you show you're willing to stay late to help your boss out, maybe you want some time off later in the month so it's a good opportunity for you to use it as a favor. Could be lots of things.

Would it be accurate to generalize your "ability to do more in the future" as 'potential persuasion / augmented persuasion'?  

You've given me some good ideas.

[Flying]

I lifted this from the FOFOA blog. FOFOA is the best out there at explaining these concepts and goes way beyond the typical Austrian. I am schooled in FOFOAs work

 

http://fofoa.blogspot.ca/2011/11/moneyness.html

 

Have you ever wondered what money really is? You'll notice that everyone you read has a strong opinion about what money actually is, but who's right? Is money really just one single thing and then everything else has varying levels of moneyness relative to real money?

Is gold real money? Or is money whatever the government says it is? Or is it whatever the market says it is? Is silver money in any way today? Are US Treasury bonds money? Is real money just the monetary base? Or is it all the credit that refers back to that base for value? Is money supposed to be something tangible, or is it simply a common unit we use to express the relative value of things?

Is money really the actual medium of exchange we use in trade? Or is it the unit of account the various media of exchange (checks, credit cards, PayPal) reference for value? Should the reference point unit itself ever be the medium of exchange? Some of the time? All of the time? Never? Is money a store of value? And if so, for how long? Is money supposed to be the fixed reference point (the benchmark) for changes in the value of everything else? Or is it simply a shared language for expressing those changes?

So many questions, right? And how often have you seen these questions even asked, let alone answered? Is money something that changes over time? Or is money's true essence the same concept that first emerged thousands of years ago? And probably the most important question: Does the correct view of money produce answers that are vastly superior to the blind conjecture prescribed by all other views?

Answers

I wonder if it's even possible to answer all these questions in one post. It's a neat challenge in any case, isn't it? As I said at the top, everyone has a strong opinion about what money actually is. So "everyone" will probably disagree with what I write. But that doesn't mean they are right and I am wrong. I want to challenge you to use your own mind and see for yourself. Take what I say and then take what they say, compare, contrast, analyze and then decide for yourself. The prescription produced by my view is quite simple. And only you can decide if it is vastly superior to their blind conjecture.

The Pure Concept of Money

According to Webster's the word 'money' emerged in the English language sometime during the Medieval period in Europe, maybe around the late 1200s. Wikipedia suggests a possible etymology originating with the Greek word for 'unique' or 'unit'. The Western term for physical coins that emerged sometime around the late 1500s was 'specie' from the Latin phrase for "in kind" or "payment in kind," meaning "payment in the actual or real form." The word 'currency' came a little later from the Latin word for current or flow, and was married to the money concept in 1699 by the philosopher John Locke who described the "circulation of money" as a flow or current of monetary payments made in specie.

Etymology is important, because with money or "the moneyness of things" we are talking about a vital concept that predates the word by thousands of years. And it's only by understanding the pure concept that we can see the ways the word has been bastardized by the two camps over centuries. The meaning we commonly assign to words may change over time, but that never changes the original concept underlying the emergence of the word in the first place.

Case in point: Is 'money' equal to 'wealth'? Is "gathering wealth" the same as "gathering money?" In the 1950s a Seattle engineer named Howard Long was deeply distressed that his beloved King James Version of the Bible just didn't seem to connect with people when sharing the Word of God. Long felt he needed a new translation that captured the truths he loved in the language that his contemporaries spoke.

It took a couple of decades, but Long's passion became the New International Version (NIV), a completely original translation from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts that was finally released in 1978. The King James Version had been translated into English and released 367 years earlier, in 1611. Here is one verse as it appears in each version:

Proverbs 13:11 (KJV) Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.

Proverbs 13:11 (NIV) Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.

I use this only as an example of how we sometimes change words to fit our modern understanding, not as any kind of a criticism of the NIV. To be fair, there are many more verses where the NIV does not remove or replace the word 'wealth'. Here are a few other translations of the same verse, which I think will help to illustrate my point about words and concepts:

Proverbs 13:11 (English Standard Version 2001) Wealth gained hastily [or by fraud] will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.

Proverbs 13:11 (Wycliffe Bible 1395) Hasted chattel, that is, gotten hastily, shall be made less; but that which is gathered little and little with hand, shall be multiplied.

Proverbs 13:11 (Young's Literal Translation 1862) Wealth from vanity becometh little, And whoso is gathering by the hand becometh great.

And, just for fun:

"Think now, if you are a person of "great worth" is it not better to acquire gold over years, at better prices? If you are one of "small worth", can you not follow in the footsteps of giants? I tell you, it is an easy path to follow!" --ANOTHER (THOUGHTS!) 1/10/98

The point is, your modern understanding of 'money', and the pure concept of money that emerged long before the word, may be substantially different things. I'll go even further to say that the modern understanding of money is so confused and disputed by the two opposing money camps that the only way we can hope to have a clear view of what is actually happening today is by reverting our understanding to the original concept, before it was corrupted by the two camps.

So now let's go back to the etymology at the top of this section because, while it does not set the pure concept, it does reflect it from a time more proximate and a meaning less corrupted than now. And I should note that etymology is a somewhat subjective and inexact science, kind of like interpreting what you find at an archeological site. So I'm using it only as a tool that helps me share with you a concept, not as proof of the correctness of my concept. There is no proof at this time. There is only the use of your own discerning mind.

If we look at the specific etymology I highlighted, we are pretty close to the pure concept which I will confirm from a couple different angles. 'Money' is a "unique unit" that we use as a kind of language for expressing the relative value of things other than money. The modern example would be "dollar". Not "a dollar," not a physical dollar, but the word "dollar" as it is used to say a can of peas costs a dollar, or my house is worth 100,000 dollars, or you owe me a hundred dollars. If you give me two grams of gold you won't owe me a hundred dollars anymore. You don't have to give me actual dollars. That's just the unit I used to express the amount of value you owed me. That's the pure concept of money.

This is where it gets a little tricky and mind-bending. The actual physical dollar, that physical item we call "a dollar," is not money in and of itself. In other words, it is not intrinsically "money". It is only money because we reference it when expressing the relative value of goods, services and credit. If we stopped referring to it, it would cease to be money even though it would still be a dollar. Can you see the difference? Like I said, it's tricky.

A dollar is just a thing, a tradable item. And it will continue being that same thing even if we stop referring to it when expressing relative values. It will still be a dollar, it just won't be money anymore. Therefore it is not money in and of itself. It is just a thing. Take the old German Reichsbank marks from 1923. Some of them still exist. They are still marks with lots of zeros. But they are no longer money. We can still trade them. I might trade you a few Zimbabwe notes for an original mark, but that obviously doesn't make them money. The same goes for gold. Gold is just a tradable item.

We could be using seashells as money. If we were, then all the seashells available for trade would be the monetary base. That's the base to which I would be referring when I said you owed me one hundred seashells. A single seashell would be the reference point, the unique unit, but the whole of all available seashells would be the base around which money flowed. You could pay your debt to me with either an item that I desired with a value expressed as 100 seashells, or with 100 actual seashells. So if the total amount of seashells available (the monetary base) suddenly doubled making them easier for you to come by, I'd be kinda screwed. Of course I'd only be screwed if the doubling happened unexpectedly between the time I lent you the value of 100 seashells and the time you paid me back.

Getting back to our etymology, the concept behind the term 'specie' meant actual units of the monetary base. In the 1500s, that was the total of all metal coins-of-the-realm available for trade. That was the monetary base of the day and the term 'specie' arose as a way to express payment in the monetary unit itself rather than payment in bulls, or hats, or anything else. But original concept aside, the meaning of the word became married to coins and stuck to this day:

Specie: 1610s, "coin, money in the form of coins" (as opposed to paper money or bullion), from phrase in specie "in the real or actual form" (1550s), from L. in specie "in kind," ablative of species "kind, form, sort"

Notice it says "coins… as opposed to… bullion." That's because while gold coins were referenced in the use of money at the time the word 'specie' emerged, gold bullion was not. "Gold" was not money in and of itself. It was just a thing; a tradable, barterable item. Notice also that it says "money in the form of coins." The coins themselves were also not money in and of themselves. They were only called money because, in that coin form, they were the monetary base that was referenced when expressing the relative value of everything else at that time. Some of those gold coins from the 1500s and 1600s still exist today. Today they are not money, but they are still gold coins. Can you see the difference yet?

Now remember, there's no right or wrong at this point. There's only the usefulness of a perspective in delivering the correct analysis of what's actually happening today and the best prescription for your personal action. But you can't use a perspective until you get it. Then, and only then, you can use your own mind to decide if it is the correct perspective and then act upon it. Later it will be proved correct or incorrect, just as Another said: "time will prove all things."

But in support of this particular view of the money concept, I'd like to direct your attention to Gold Trail Three where FOA went to great length explaining the historical precedents for this view found in the archeological record. Some of this history has been rewritten in hard money text books to fit the modern meaning of words, while the actual historical record—and FOA—tell a different story about the underlying concepts.

 

Continued in the link...

[Mister Mister]

Money is a contract.  It is a promise on future labor.

[rosencrantz]

The problem with money is that it has several aspects. It is a commodity, that can be produced (fiat, gold digging, mining bitcoin), it is a store of value, it can be used as a substitute for barter, and it gives you information via the price finding mechanism.

[Crallask]

The problem with money is that it has several aspects. It is a commodity, that can be produced (fiat, gold digging, mining bitcoin), it is a store of value, it can be used as a substitute for barter, and it gives you information via the price finding mechanism.

Basically it's a form of communication and data.

[Kaz Lokuciewski]

I don't have a problem with money being defined as a medium of exchange,

but it isn't always exchanged (e.g. inheritance, charity, etc.).

 

The way I like to think about it is with the following hypothetical scenario:

 

It's 5:00 pm and there is a tug-of-war.

Friend A wants you to go to the beach with them.

Friend B wants you to go to the museum with them.

Friend C wants you to go rescue people from a burning house.

Boss D wants you to work overtime for time & a half.

 

A is trying to persuade you with fun/joy

B is trying to persuade you with knowledge/wisdom

C is trying to persuade you with virtue/morality

What is D trying to persuade you with?

 

I think that money is a type of persuasion,

but I can't figure out what type of persuasion it is.

 

 D is persuading you with security & opportunity.

[Alan C.]

[Flying]

The problem with money is that it has several aspects. It is a commodity, that can be produced (fiat, gold digging, mining bitcoin), it is a store of value, it can be used as a substitute for barter, and it gives you information via the price finding mechanism.

Money as most know it today is supposed to function as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value.

 

Right now we have the hard money camp and the soft money camp. Socialists, debtors, R selected ppl like soft money and productive ppl, savers and K's like hard money. This is the age old conflict. The debtors vs the savers.  The solution is not to make soft money a little harder (gold standard) or hard money a little softer.

 

The solution is to split the functions of money. The "store of value" function has to be split from the unit of acct and medium of exchange. To make a very long story short, this is already happening. Physical gold will take its place as the store of value par excellence. And digital/paper money will retain its place as the medium of exchange par excellence. Gold is for saving. Digital money is for commerce. 

 

The Euro architects anticipated this in the 1960's. They understood the inherent flaws in the US dollar/gold standard and how it would end.  This is why they have physical gold on the first line of their balance sheet on the asset side. And they mark their physical gold holdings to market every quarter at the floating market price. They float it.

 

 

 

Now look what happens to their balance sheet when gold moves. Now imagine what will happen when we have another bond market blowup in the US like the 1980's and gold goes up 2300% ? As their cash equivalent  holdings fall , their gold reserve value rises.

 

 

This just shows the quarterly marked to market function. Compare this to the Fed, who has no gold but has promissory notes from the treasury for gold market at $42 an ounce !

 

 

 

There is a ton of anti Euro propaganda out there and the Fed scum is trying to take control of the Euro because they know its the biggest threat to them. But it is wrong to lump the Euro in with the Fed scum and its wrong to over simplify this. Stefan is not aware of the original design of the Euro and how it is made for a post Fed world either.

[Armitage]

When you really get down to it, money is information, a statement. The price system at any given moment is a language and a number of money has a meaning within it according to its purchasing power. The price system changes as much in a year as a language changes in the century. In the language of money, context, or situation on the market, is everything.

[dsayers]

Money is a contract.  It is a promise on future labor.

 

Could you clarify this please? As I understand it, money is stored value. Proof of prior value given, not future.

 

Essentially, money is a technology. Before currency, trading was arduous and inefficient. If you have a doctor and a farmer, the following all need to be true simultaneously in order for them to trade: Doctor wants something the farmer has. Farmer wants something the doctor can provide. Both parties value both products/services equally. All of this doesn't even account for competition. Money not only acts as a divisible intermediary, but also helps to qualify market signals, helping all interested parties get a better understanding of what things are actually worth.

[Very Ape]

Money is a medium of exchange with whatever value people believe it has.

 

Money has no intrinsic value other than as a medium of exchange between a buyer and a seller.

 

When an exchange occurs between a buyer and a seller they, at that precise moment, define the value of the money in terms of the goods or services rendered. No one other than the buyer or the seller should be involved in determining that value.

 

Therefore it is pointless to ask what money "is" because it is being defined and redefined constantly. All you can say is that it is a medium of exchange. Some may say real money has certain qualities like gold and silver but even then people have to agree that it has said qualities otherwise no exchange.

 

Do you feel confused?

 

You should - it's far too simple to comprehend given how much it controls us.

[utopian]

Forget about anything that is paper, and anything that is credit or debit card for a moment.

 

 

Everything else in existence is money. Rocks, water, wood, cattle, computers, houses. All material things.

 

But also, humans are money. The services that humans can provide are money, whether the service be preparing food, cutting lumber, moving objects, or whatever. All services take time, thus the phrase "time is money".

 

 

 

 

Now, introduce paper and credit back into the equation. Paper itself is fairly worthless. However, a piece of paper that I write "one hour of work" or "one of my material goods" might be worth something to you. If I were to sign my name on such a piece of paper, you might be willing to trade that piece of paper for, say, something you own, like your computer. 

 

I could trade you one of my physical objects for one of your physical objects, or I could trade you such a piece of paper for one of your physical objects, and you could come back later with that piece of paper to redeem the object on the paper. That is, of course, if I am an honorable person who will in fact give you what I signed up for on that piece of paper. For that, you see, is the door through which this most unbelievable of crimes is exacted upon humanity.

[dsayers]

Therefore it is pointless to ask what money "is" because it is being defined and redefined constantly. All you can say is that it is a medium of exchange.

 

Before providing a sufficient definition, you said asking for that definition is pointless since it couldn't be answered.

 

it's far too simple to comprehend given how much it controls us.

 

As somebody who accepts free will and that the initiation of the use of force is immoral (not the motivation behind it), I think this is a false claim. Could you tell me more about how money controls us?

[Very Ape]

Good questions....

 

Perhaps it is not pointless - maybe I was too extreme. However you can't really pin down what it is because as I said it is always being redefined with each new exchange. It is whatever the exchangers believe it is - which is kind of trippy I think.

 

Money controls us because we are the ones defining it's value even though it has no intrinsic value.

 

You are fee to pick that argument apart - it just seems to make sense to me these days

[dsayers]

Money controls us because we are the ones defining it's value even though it has no intrinsic value.

 

You are fee to pick that argument apart - it just seems to make sense to me these days

 

"Money controls us" is a claim, not an argument. You say it makes sense to you, but you haven't explained why, even when asked. If it was revealed that your belief was erroneous, would you relinquish and/or revise it?

 

Humans have defined every concept that humans use. This doesn't mean that everything controls us. I don't see how a concept can control something that exists and "money" is a concept. So I could still use some clarification on how money controls us, as was your claim.

[Mister Mister]

Could you clarify this please? As I understand it, money is stored value. Proof of prior value given, not future.

 

Essentially, money is a technology. Before currency, trading was arduous and inefficient. If you have a doctor and a farmer, the following all need to be true simultaneously in order for them to trade: Doctor wants something the farmer has. Farmer wants something the doctor can provide. Both parties value both products/services equally. All of this doesn't even account for competition. Money not only acts as a divisible intermediary, but also helps to qualify market signals, helping all interested parties get a better understanding of what things are actually worth.

Yes...There is a myth that before money, people had direct barter systems, trading chickens for wheat for lumber and so on, and that money eventually emerged as the most "tradeable" commodity based on certain physical characteristics, typically gold and silver as they are non-corrosive, soft, scarce, and so on.  My understanding is that there is no evidence this was ever the case. 

 

  Most primitive, pre-money societies trade on a kind of mutual credit system.  That is, one person might give something to, or do something for, his neighbor, and the neighbor will remember and in the future do something for him.  This kind of exchange is more natural than the "on-the-spot" transaction of direct barter, but also relies on trust and reputation.  In the same way, with your friends and family, you may "trade" favors, but without ever accounting for those trades.  It's interesting to think about how the exchange of money between intimate relations is seen as weird and gross...people close to you generally would prefer you buy them a coffee or a beer or lunch or something, rather than paper money.

 

  When exchange goes beyond the local, familial relationships that can be enforced socially, it is necessary to provide some accounting system.  Merchants used to write a kind of IOU, a promise to deliver goods/services in the future, this promise could also itself be traded in the marketplace.  Many businesses still do this in the form of coupons, frequent flier miles, etc...  Places like Ithaca, NY and Breckenridge, CO, have developed systems where multiple businesses pool their "coupons" into a more fungible kind of "community" money.  The advantage to this kind of system is that the people who are producing value are now producing money, rather than banks who have gold or governments who have power.  It cuts out the overhead of having to mine gold or bitcoins, which people don't actually need to survive, and gives the power to create money to those who have a reputation in the community for producing value.  Hope that makes sense, just an alternative perspective I've found very compelling.

[Very Ape]

Since money is an inanimate object it has no value intrinsically (maybe you could start an fire with it as in Weimar Germany).

 

We imbue it with value based on our own biases, etc.

 

If we imagine something has value, and others agree with this illusion, and yet we can prove it has no intrinsic value, it must hold some sort of "sacred" or ritualistic place in our mind. When we worship something, it tends to control us no? We haven't figured out how to properly barter yet precisely because we hold money as sacred.

 

And I am a gold and silver bug btw - so I am guilty of my own argument.

[dsayers]

@RoseCodex: Sorry, I didn't mean to put forth narrative in lieu of facts. I know little of such things in a historical perspective, so I'll accept what you've described. I would submit that currency would still be an advance in technology. Not only does it allow you to settle your debt in the moment if you so desire, but it reduces the amount of trust or familiarity needed in order to be able to trade. And if you can trade with more people, you have greater potential for trading efficiently.

 

@Very Ape, you didn't answer my question: If it was revealed that your belief was erroneous, would you relinquish and/or revise it? The answer is pretty important in knowing how much effort I want to put into talking with you about this.

 

Since money is an inanimate object it has no value intrinsically (maybe you could start an fire with it as in Weimar Germany).

 

Your terminology is imprecise and has led to us talking about two different things I think (my fault since I was talking about something you had said). Money is a concept and therefore not an object at all. What was burned in the Weimar Republic were marks or cash (physical objects). So earlier, when you said what is money could not be answered but then provided a sufficient definition, I think you were instead answering the unasked question of "what could be considered as currency?"

 

When we worship something, it tends to control us no?

 

No. When a human being chooses to worship something, it is a voluntary choice (barring parents inflicting conclusions on children, but that's another topic). Their behaviors after that might be different based on their belief, but this cannot be described as their belief controlling them. Describing in in that matter is taking agency away from that person, which is dangerous because that accidentally excuses them from any wrong doing they might engage in as a result of that belief. If nothing else, if you mean to say that people worship money, that's different than saying it controls them.

 

Finally, value is subjective so there is no such valid concept as "intrinsic value" (objectively subjective). Saying a US dollar for example has no value outside of what others will trade for it does nothing to offset its value in the fact that others will trade for it. Like, you describe yourself as a gold bug. Maybe you wanted a car and I had a car to sell. I have no use for gold, but I might make a trade for some of your gold if I understood that later on, I'd be able to trade some of that gold for things I DO have a use for. We could debate and discuss the way in which gold is or is not valuable or meets the standards of what can be used as currency. However, all that matters is that you and I are willing to trade for it and there's reasonable expectations that others will also. Makes you wonder why socialists haven't tried to use finger/toenails as currency considering we all have about the same amount "according to our needs" 

[Very Ape]

Whether my argument was sufficiently persuasive I can assure you that money does control you.

 

Unless you are a hermit or pure off the grid bartered it controls you.

 

While I agree one should aspire to pure voluntary actions and decisions, once you give value to something simply becuase others value it too you are not really in a voluntary situation. You are now bound to the perception of value others have and your sense of the sacredness of the inanimate object (be they bits and bytes or fiat paper) is now wrapped up in the opinions of others. Since most people have relatively common agreements about goods and services and price points for them you will have little trouble exchanging but what if you DONT agree?

 

What if you think for instance that the dollar is shit and shouldn't buy anything priced in dollars without a 60% markup?

 

Then what?

 

You're screwed until of course, enough people agree with you.

 

Do you see how you are dependent now on others and not in a voluntary situation at all?

I should say "sell anything in dollars" rather

[dsayers]

Whether my argument was sufficiently persuasive I can assure you that money does control you.

 

Your post didn't address anything I said. At least now I have my answer that no, you will not revise your theory, meaning it was never about the truth.

 

what if you DONT agree?

 

Then you don't trade. If you are free to decline, it is a voluntary exchange.

 

Do you see how you are dependent now on others and not in a voluntary situation at all?

 

No. You don't need to trade with anybody. You could make your own food, clothes, medicine, and shelter. It's just WAY more efficient to trade with others (division of labor).

[Mister Mister]

@RoseCodex: Sorry, I didn't mean to put forth narrative in lieu of facts. I know little of such things in a historical perspective, so I'll accept what you've described. I would submit that currency would still be an advance in technology. Not only does it allow you to settle your debt in the moment if you so desire, but it reduces the amount of trust or familiarity needed in order to be able to trade. And if you can trade with more people, you have greater potential for trading efficiently.

Yes you are right that money is a technology.  I was just pointing out that the "value" of the money is contingent on the belief that people will provide goods and services in exchange for it.  In this way, money has value in the same way a formal contract has value, it is only as good as your trust that the other party will fulfill their end.  Which is very relevant to Very Ape's argument.

 

Do you see how you are dependent now on others and not in a voluntary situation at all?

 

Unless you are a hermit or pure off the grid bartered it controls you.You're screwed until of course, enough people agree with you.

What you are talking about has nothing to do inherently with money, but rather the inter-dependence of people as a result of the division of labor.  If I understand your argument, it is that being dependent on others is not voluntary?  If so, I think you are using a different definition of voluntary.  Furthermore, you are using a definition of voluntary that is nearly impossible to fulfill, as we are a social species, with different personalities who specialize in different skills.  For example, if I get sick, and need a doctor, and I call one up, and we make an arrangement for him to give me treatment, what is the problem?  Is it not voluntary, just because I can't doctor myself?  What you're saying doesn't really make sense.  I have a guess, that really, the idea of being dependent on others in a voluntary situation makes you uncomfortable because maybe you don't think you have that much value to provide others.  Is that close at all?

[rosencrantz]

While money itself (paper or gold) has no intrinsic value it can form a network when it's accepted by a lot of people. Your own private currency has no value at all,  because you are the only one to use it (or not use it). But when you have a network of people using the same monetary units you get a network effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe's_lawThis explains why money with no intrinsic value can have enormous utility value. Gold and silver have additional attributes that contribute to them being superior to other forms of exchange in similar networks.

[Very Ape]

DSayers...

 

I am not familiar with the quoting mechanism here so forgive my old school tactics but let me address your narrowly focused questions again

 

"Your post didn't address anything I said. At least now I have my answer that no, you will not revise your theory, meaning it was never about the truth."

 

I think that's a bit extreme.

 

Regarding your assertion of not having to trade with anyone and making your own clothes, etc.

 

For the vast majority of people they would simply die if they didn't trade. So no that's not true AT ALL.

 

Ironically you seem unaware of the current situation with the dollar. Many countries around the world in fact ARE forced to use the dollar particularly for oil based products. Currency hegemony is a very real thing - try printing your own money.

 

And many people feel the dollar is misprinted relative to other currencies (myself included) and is backed primarily by the threat of war and violence against countries that wish to abandon it.

 

Does it seem like a coincidence to you that the countries who are militarily opposed to the US right now (Iran, Russia, China, Syria) as well as other regimes like Libya that we have toppled recently were all in some stage of abandoning the dollar?

 

Now if you live in the US and want to trade exclusively outside of the dollar system you will face a number of problems including potential jail time.

 

And yet still it's just paper and bra and bytes on the computer.

 

Just because you are not AWARE that you are worshiping something doesn't mean you are not.

 

How many transactions do you make in US dollars vs another currency? That is the degree to which it controls you and the degree to which you hold it as "sacred" in your daily living.

I should say how many transactions do you make in dollars vs another currency vs gold and silver vs bitcoin vs bartering

 

Simply doing something out of convenience does not preclude it controlling you.

 

I may find it convenient for instance to smoke cigarettes, snort coke, etc. to help lose weight - but in doing so I also becoming addicted to it.

 

I may find it convenient to take the bus to work instead of driving but if in doing so I never learn to drive or get a car I'm now under control of the metro bussing system and it schedule which may at some point cancel a line where I live or go on strike.

[Mister Mister]

Ironically you seem unaware of the current situation with the dollar.

 

Just because you are not AWARE that you are worshiping something doesn't mean you are not.

 

...

 

Simply doing something out of convenience does not preclude it controlling you.

This is not a good way to communicate. 

 

There's no question that a lot of what you are saying is true.  But the compulsion which we are all under is not inherent in money as a broader concept (which was the original topic of this thread), but rather is a function of the coercion in the government system.  We are required by law to declare our income in Federal Reserve Notes, and our productivity is leveraged against us as National Debt.  No one here I think has a problem condemning that as a disgusting, exploitative, violent system.

 

But I think you are moving the goalposts a little bit.  The original question was about what defines money, not about the details of the modern currency system of the US and the world.  And your contention, if I understood, was that being dependent on others, by needing goods and services they provide through the division of labor, and exchange of money, is inherently coercive, not voluntary.  That's what dsayers was taking issue with I think.  I can pretty much guarantee he wasn't disagreeing though, that the modern Federal Reserve system is coercive.

[Very Ape]

RoseCodex - again forgive my old school style. I'll figure out the quotes later. But to address your comment:

"Furthermore, you are using a definition of voluntary that is nearly impossible to fulfill, as we are a social species, with different personalities who specialize in different skills. For example, if I get sick, and need a doctor, and I call one up, and we make an arrangement for him to give me treatment, what is the problem? Is it not voluntary, just because I can't doctor myself? What you're saying doesn't really make sense. I have a guess, that really, the idea of being dependent on others in a voluntary situation makes you uncomfortable because maybe you don't think you have that much value to provide others. Is that close at all?"

I think you may have misunderstood my example.

The point I am trying to make is...

What if I think the currency (debt) I am using is actually backed by fraud, force and collusion BUT I can't get out of using because I am either forced to by law or because everyone else is using it and won't accept anything else? Few people can even wrap their mind around that or ever get to the point of even questioning a currency's legitimacy much like people who vote but don't understand democracy. Most people just go along with it because they see other people doing it too and this you the buyer or seller don't really have a choice. If a seller felt a 60% markup to all goods he is selling in dollars was necessary (for fear of say hyperinflation) vs competitors he would probably go broke - he has no choice but to price it competitively in dollars because everyone else is (nor matter how ignorant their prices are of hyperinflation) and because the government will shut him down if he does not accept dollars. Furthermore the government will make the argument that it is necessary to force people to use dollars to stabilize the currency. The same argument we are all making btw - in other words "If people don't use it its not useful".

It is ironic don't you think that the worlds most overprinted, over indebted, violent currency is the one people still, by and large, demand the most?

If you can't see the control of the US dollar, the king of all fiat, has over you then I think you are in for some suprises in the near future.

I'll leave you with the following quote...

"If you give me control of the nations money supply I care not who makes it's laws"

Nathan de Rothschild

Now why would he (member of the wealthiest clan of men in history) say that if money had no power or control over us? Notice he specifically said he could bypass the government all-together with this one simple power.

 

Again this comes down to people's awareness of what money is...

 

It is symbolic.

It is alchemical.

It is religious.

 

When we anarchists and libertarians try to argue using sound reasoning and logic with the statists and the sheeple regarding the Federal Reserve, the dollar system, etc. and fail, do you really think it is because of the lack of soundness or logic in our reasoning or arguments that causes them to say "That's not true! Where are you getting that from?".

 

Its because questioning the dollar is questioning something sacred to them. Their whole identity is wrapped up in the dollar - for the dollar to be "weak" causes their whole Keynesian, statist, jingoistic, R-selective (you name it), Anglo-American view of the world to come crashing down all at once.

 

All that emotion and worship wrapped up in one symbol - $

[dsayers]

I think that's a bit extreme.

You realize that calling something extreme and doing nothing to disprove it is itself not addressing what was said, right?

 

For the vast majority of people they would simply die if they didn't trade. So no that's not true AT ALL.

I reject this oversimplification. If it were true, how would that fact of LIFE accrue to money, which is a concept, and came after LIFE? For that matter, how did anybody live before money? How do animals live without money?

 

the dollar... is backed primarily by the threat of war and violence

This is why having a closed mind while pretending to explore the truth is a waste of my time. Earlier, I specifically said "Describing it in that matter is taking agency away from that person, which is dangerous because that accidentally excuses them from any wrong doing they might engage in as a result of that belief." Just as I warned, by saying that "money" is responsible for controlling people, you are concealing the aggression of PEOPLE voluntarily initiating the use of force.

 

Furthermore, you're conflating fiat currency with currency. Also, the concept of money pre-dates (and will likely post-date) the US empire. So making any matter-of-fact, broad claims about money based on observations relative to the US dollar is flawed methodology. Assuming that sort of thing is of any value to you.

 

Just because you are not AWARE that you are worshiping something doesn't mean you are not.

Earlier, I claimed that worshipping something is a voluntary choice. Here, you are asserting that it is not, with no acknowledgement that a competing claim has been made. I won't trouble you with the challenge of making the case since I've already done this with regards to the extraordinary claim that money controls people and you haven't begun to make a case.

 

Regarding your Rothschild quote, an appeal to authority is not an argument. In the claim "controls," the burden of proof is rooted in choice. The quote assumes the answer while you use it to try and explain the answer. This is begging the question.

[Very Ape]

Dsayer...

 

Allow me to go down the "rabbit hole" with you a bit further...(pun intended)

 

"You realize that calling something extreme and doing nothing to disprove it is itself not addressing what was said, right?"

 

Did you read anything I wrote after that? It's as though you believe I just wrote one line that and left.

 

"I reject this oversimplification. If it were true, how would that fact of LIFE accrue to money, which is a concept, and came after LIFE? For that matter, how did anybody live before money? How do animals live without money?"

 

Well then, I reject your rejection of my oversimplication (is that an argument? You tell me). 

 

Seriously though, just because people lived before without money doesn't mean...

 

a. They lived very long (most died actually).

b. That modern people now could easily transition to said lifestyle without money. Do you really honestly think most people could live without money? Could you? Are you one of the 0.1% of the population who is doing this? I know people who are sincerely trying to get off the grid (as much as possible), farm with their hands and it is a struggle at best. I doubt you really know what is involved in off the grid living. I mean without money there is also no electricity and without electricity MOST URBAN DWELLING PEOPLE WILL DIE. Denying that is like denying gravity imo. You can't refrigerate food, flush toilets, wash dishes, medicine runs out, supplies soon run out --> Without these supplies, for most people, Death comes knocking.

 

You also seem to be having a hard time with the idea that people can be controlled by something they are unaware of.

 

I think this is a difficult concept for you as it is for most people. The Rotschilds were smart becuase they understood most people would be bound to the fiat currency system but unaware of what it really was - stuck in the matrix if you will. People can unconciously agree to all kinds of things they are not aware of. A clear example is a cigarette chain smoker claiming "I can quit any time" - can they?

 

I would suggest reading some Freud or better yet Carl Jung's work on the collective unconscious. People really hate this topic because it implies that they don't have free will. And here's where it gets tricky - MOST people actually don't have free will. It too must be developed like any other muscle. You are not just born with it simply because you grew up in an ostensibly free country - you have to work towards it. Gurdjieff is a great person to study on this topic btw. Most people are frankly, robotic in their thinking - like an automaton.

 

"This is why having a closed mind while pretending to explore the truth is a waste of my time."

 

Your time? I didn't realize you were billing me. I thought this was voluntary. My mistake.

 

"Earlier, I claimed that worshipping something is a voluntary choice. Here, you are asserting that it is not, with no acknowledgement that a competing claim has been made. I won't trouble you with the challenge of making the case since I've already done this with regards to the extraordinary claim that money controls people and you haven't begun to make a case."

 

How did religion conquer the world if worshipping something was a voluntary choice? How are muslims forcing women to cover their faces if worship is a voluntary choice?

 

If we can vote with our pocketbooks others can "vote" against you regarding price. How do you think the Rothschild's controlled the price of things? Again, refer to what I said

 

"Furthermore, you're conflating fiat currency with currency."

 

This topic was about defining money in general - if you are getting lost in sub-definitions it is by your own design not mine. If we are talking about "money", I will talk about fiat currency unless you specifically directed me otherwise towards "non-fiat". Ironically this is the problem I pointed out to beging with - since there is no common definition of money it allows you to skirt around me and pretend that I am the one changing definitions. Not fair play I might add.

 

So now you would like me to rewrite everything I spoke of in terms of NON fiat currency? Of which there are essentially none left in our world? You would like to remove from this discussion the primary currency with which over 50% of all global trade and 80-90% of oil reserves and derivatives are priced in? Which country's currency would you like to discuss that is on either a gold standard or say backed by bitcoin? I will gladly change the topic towards those currencies to suit your narrow interests. Would you like me to talk about gold and silver? I could go on at length about them.

 

Also I suspect you are waiting for me to bust out some kind of Marxist statement whereby I conclude that just because people are controlled by something it is evil. I don't really believe that either. Mostly I believe that people need to be aware of the potential within themselves to be controlled, unconciously, by external forces, archetypes, even symbols like $. Once you are aware and AWAKE, then you can make decisions better aligned with your own self interest, as opposed to say the Rothschilds. Speaking of which...

 

"Regarding your Rothschild quote, an appeal to authority is not an argument."

 

Are you admitting he is an authority?

 

The Rothschild's clearly believe that quote about controlling the printing press. They are among the wealthiest people the planet has ever had. You on the other hand, are not one of them - just some anonymous on the internet. As much as I may despise what the central bankers do, I must admire their methods and their abilities to manipulate human beings - to get them to do what is against their own self interest. Much like in the Movie the Matrix, the perfect slave is the one who willingly enters into it, who is psychologically beaten, propagandized, subjugated, blinded and obedient. Is it a "choice"? Well that is all in the definition of "choice". Strictly speaking we can ALL choose not to be controlled by money. But once enough people choose to be controlled by it (consciously or otherwise), then you are stuck in their system, like it or not and their rules around money, in the general sense, will determine the price of everything you buy which in a sense DOES control you in terms of how much labor and utility you will need to provide.

 

And given that there is so little financial education in our world, that we are forced to make money and trade with it before we fully understand what "it" is to survive, most people are for all practical purposes stuck in the fiat currency matrix without much options for the same reasons everyone has said - because everyone else finds it useful to do so. Bitcoin and PM's are your best bet but make no mistake, the government can ban these too, perhaps right at the same time they introduce negative interest rates.

 

You are oversimplifying things is my point.

 

Lastly,

 

With all due respect...

 

You are not a puzzle or a computer I need to solve - I can give you clues but I am not hear to "prove" anything to you. Notice I haven't asked you to "prove" anything to me. I offer suggestions and reasoning to direct you towards what I believe to be true but I am not forcing that on you and I don't care if you agree or not. I offer my reasoning to help others primarily. I would very much like to convince others that gold and silver are REAL money but I didn't feel that was the point of the topic - it would actually be beneficial to me if everyone went out and bought precious metals to drive the price up.

 

[dsayers]

Your every post has been to obfuscate. All you have to do is either explain how a concept can control an actual object, explain how an inanimate object can control a human being, or admit that you erred in claiming the same.

 

Did you read anything I wrote after that? It's as though you believe I just wrote one line that and left.

Deflection. I wrote more, but you don't want to face your own deflection, so you deflect again.

 

Well then, I reject your rejection of my oversimplication (is that an argument? You tell me). 

Deflection. I didn't just reject, I explained why. Repeating me (without providing a why) is a way of avoiding the why.

 

just because people lived before without money doesn't mean...

Deflection. Doesn't matter what it does NOT mean. What it DOES mean is that you cannot attribute something to that which came after it. Deflecting is a way of avoiding this obvious hole in your reverse exlpanation.

 

You also seem to be having a hard time with the idea that people can be controlled by something they are unaware of.

Deflection. By pointing the finger at me, you continue to dodge the extraordinary evidence required to substantiate the extraordinary claim that creatures of free will are being remotely controlled by a concept and/or inanimate objects.

 

MOST people actually don't have free will

If you believed this, you wouldn't attempt to influence the understanding of others because you would believe it to be deterministic.

 

"This is why having a closed mind while pretending to explore the truth is a waste of my time."

 

Your time? I didn't realize you were billing me. I thought this was voluntary. My mistake.

Deflection. Focusing on my referencing my time avoids focusing on the fact that you are being willfully and unapologetically deceitful. As if my contributions to this thread occur instantaneously, without any effort.

 

How are muslims forcing women to cover their faces if worship is a voluntary choice?

How are PEOPLE (who don't HAVE TO force other PEOPLE to do something) CHOOSING to force other PEOPLE to do something a choice? The answer is baked into the question. We can be done if you're going to feign stupidity.

 

Are you admitting he is an authority?

I am admitting that you're quoting somebody as if reality is true because somebody said it was and not because it can be proven objectively. You cannot explain how a concept or inanimate object is capable of controlling a person, so you quote somebody saying it can as if that's proof. This is a logical fallacy know as "appeal to authority." Look it up.

[Very Ape]

Self -Edited for the sake others....

[Mister Mister]

Very Ape, I don't disagree with a lot of what you say.  Stef and the greater Libertarian/AnCap world regularly cover the problems with the dollar and fiat money in general, and the economic instability sure to be part of all of our future.  But you are WAAAAYYY moving the goalposts, have totally hijacked a thread that was about a philosophical definition of money, and just to the point of lecturing.  It's not fun to have a conversation this way.  I don't even know what you're trying to convince me of.

[dsayers]

You've taken offense to a discussion where there should be none but I'll let that slide for now.

 

Whilst you proclaim I must "prove" to you that money can control people by showing you precisely how (you seem very obsessed with this)

You made a claim. I responded, "As somebody who accepts free will and that the initiation of the use of force is immoral (not the motivation behind it), I think this is a false claim. Could you tell me more about how money controls us?" You have yet to explain this. Pointing out that you have yet to answer the question that has led to all this fluff is not an obsession. It's to let you know that all your attempts at obfuscation has not caused me to lose sight of what that question was. Calling it an obsession and making presumptions of "taking offense" is more deflection. One of the nice things about speaking about objective truths is that there is no emotional investment. You want to reject that 2+2=4? What do I care? It's true with or without you.

 

If anything, the part I find personally disturbing is that even after it's been pointed out to you twice, you still attribute the evils of the world to inanimate objects, effectively concealing the evil and preserving/growing it by tricking people into thinking these behaviors are not the responsibility of human beings. Never mind the logical hole that if people have no control over their actions, then 1) there is no evil because nobody has a choice and 2) there is no evil because people don't have choices that COULD be violated.

 

You (and others here) claim you oppose the Fed but I don't believe you understand their magic tricks.

I have never said this. I recognize that theft, assault, rape, and murder are the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights. This is called addressing the problem. The Fed is just one of many, MANY symptoms. A symptom that will continue as long as people like you protect those who are guilty of aggression by pointing to concepts, inanimate objects, and antrhopomorphizing "the Fed" instead of holding human beings accountable for their aggression.