Talk:Commodity money

standard links in titles

I've been using a standard for links in titles.

Which is: if the meaning of the phrase is precisely and only and exactly what one would expect by applying the adjective to the noun, I'll link both terms, or just the noun, as applicable, directly in the title itself.

If, on the other hand, the combination has non-obvious implications, I link only the base term e.g. "classical economics", I won't do that for "classical", just for "economics", since that's the anchor term, and a link to "classical" will be about Greek and Roman architecture, most likely. The link isn't useful to the reader to understand the subject we already know they care about.

So, if there problems with that standard, let's talk about it. It requires some judgement but so does everything. -24.

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I removed a lot of stuff that was clearly NPOV.

I don't think so. I think you removed a lot of stuff that you don't understand. That said, I don't mind if this article remains short, and avoids the 20th century history of this type of money. The inter-relationship of commodity, credit and fiat got complicated in the 20th century, and the articles overlap a fair bit, explaining how each means of backing relied ultimately on both of the others.-24

it would help if you would say exactly what offended you, as your "clearly NPOV" is the rest of the world's "blindingly obvious" in a great many cases.

the views of green economists and the bank for international settlements are clearly stated in those articles.

The last couple of paragraphs is extremely well-attributed, mentioning among other things the views of the 1999 "Nobel Prize Winner in Economics" (which the Nobel family claims is a fraudulent name for what was always called the Swedish Bank Prize), that being Amartya Sen. I don't see how you can claim this is somehow not attributed, or even a very controversial view. 24

I know enough economic history to know that what I deleted was *NOT* mainstream and non-controversial, nor is it "blindingly obvious" to the rest of the world. If I'm wrong and it is then someone else will put it back.

the history of the US gold standard is well known, the role of the BIS is well documented, and Sen actually based his book on a series of lectures at the World Bank - certainly citing his view with attribution is reasonable even if it is *not* mainstream - apologies for not citing his WB post and for assuming that Swedish Bank Prize winners represent a mainstream (they usually do but perhaps 3 to 5 years in advance)24

it would help much if you told me what specifically offended you about the characterization of the recent evolution of commodity money. 24

The history of the US gold standard is indeed well known, but you have given absolutely no indication that you know anything about it. You haven't mentioned any of the reasons at all why the United States gave up the gold standard and have shown no indication that you know what they are.

I'm not interested in the "Reasons Why" unless they are beyond all historical dispute.

Instead, you have this persistent habit of claiming knowledge that you do not have.

well, I've been accussed of that before, and 80% of the time it turns out these are terminology differences, 15% of the time they are disputed facts, and only 5% of the time am I actually "Wrong". Which, given all I've written, and that only about 20% of articles are challenged, means I may be 1% wrong, which is a pretty good record.

I'm not an expert in economics. I've only read some basic college textbooks, but at this point I'm convinced that I know more about the subject of commodity money and fiat money than you do. There are some extremely basic and important facts that you've left out, and I believe you've left them out because you have no clue what they are.

well, you attempting to differentiate "commodity money" from "representative money" shows me the opposite - nearly all economists break down the various ways to back money as "commodity, credit, and fiat" and don't make an issue of representation - rather they assumed that some state is guaranteeing non-counterfeiting. The Sumerian example is critical to get to the roots of that question, and what the difference is between commodity and representative money, in your parlance, and yet you omit it from both articles. And, in the process, taking out the only funny line in the article. Shame on you. You are making this no fun.

So you tell me, what most economists think was the trigger to cause United States move to fiat money? I bet you just don't know.

maybe not, as it's not clear what you *mean* - since you think this "representative" issue is so important - as far as I'm concerned a state has moved to fiat money the second it shaves any metal at all off its coins. As I recall that first happened in the USA in the Revolutionary War. Anyway, it's irrelevant to the article, as it shouldn't speculate on cause overmuch - nor is there much concern about coinage versus paper bills in modern times - as the state is presumed to back both. But, the US Civil War was the first time that money was issued that was not *CLAIMED TO BE* strictly backed by gold, if I have that fact straight. But the evolution post that time is more interesting - 1865-1970 when there was this fake gold standard.

Also don't try looking on google for the answer. I've got access to google too, and it's going to be obvious if you just copy the first page that seems to give the right answer.

I would never do that. That's LDC's specialty. The most relevant page I can find is this gold standard = fiat in disguise which argues, as I did, that there is actually no real difference between the faux gold standard (which you call "representative money" and I call just more "fiat money") and just plain military fiat banking.

Frankly, I suspect you have never spoken to an economist outside the classical or neoclassical tradition. Globally, that makes you quite common, but you shouldn't claim to understand the fundamentals if you don't.

The Qing dynasty system is interesting - why don't you elaborate on that, commit yourself to some view or other of the gold standard versus the fiat, and we can nitpick at it for days.

As to what "most economists think", that depends on whether you are talking about the USA where economists are generally wholly ignorant even of the Marxist analysis, and thus are not economists proper but rather propagandists, or whether you are talking about the UK where the Empire-centric view prevails (empire as guarantor of trade and military power signified by acceptability of notes versus precious metal coins).

From the UK view, one would have to say that US imperialism at the turn of the 19th to 20th century forced it to shift to fiat money. Whether they continued to claim that gold was backing it, or the future productive potential of new colonies like the Phillippines or Hawaii or Alaska, is quite irrelevant, as nothing that imperialists say is more than pro-empire propaganda, ultimately.

And, an outright Marxist would say something completely different. So you tell me the scope of "most economists" and I'll give you some kind of answer, that you will claim is "wrong" because of your high school understanding, and you keep issuing your high school surprise quiz, and nothing will get done.

I think we're better off if you write what you think the gold standard meant, and how it fcilitated the shift from commodity to "representative" to fiat money. Also what you think credit means, since the idea of a division of function between fiat and representative money truly fuzzes that question.

Looking forward to it.

Hey. Guys. Don't forget that with timestamps and signatures, you can make your discussion legible to people who aren't you. (You do know there are people who aren't you, don't you?) Use tildes (~): either three (69.49.44.11), four (69.49.44.11 14:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)), or five (14:34, 9 December 2006 (UTC)). And, not to be partisan or anything, but "I removed a lot of stuff that was clearly NPOV" strikes me as a famous last words sort of statement. Even if the removal is entirely apt, the explanation is unlikely to inform, persuade, or comfort anyone.

Condoms?

Is there a source for the condoms claim? It seems fishy to me. We also need sources for the other commodities used.

RandomP 12:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

• That struck me as very strange too. I've removed condoms from the list. — Greentryst ^T_C 15:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

This page appears to be a hodgepodge of people's pet monetary theories. -- Scott e^iπ 13:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. What in particular do you see as a problem? ←Ben^B4 18:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Let's start with the prolipsis of the article:

"Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects that have value in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as value in their use as money."

This is not the historical reality of commodity money and the citation supporting it comes from 2004, which is presenting a distorted view of this topic which is well documented in far older sources.

Commodity money is a medium of exchange that represents a claim on a specific commodity... stored in a warehouse of an ancient city state. These "claim tickets" were first made from things like paper, wood, bamboo and later were made of metal tokens. The shekel is a good example of commodity money (that article serves well enough as a citation in support of this entire point I am making here), it was valuable, not because it was made of metal, but because it represented a claim of a measure of grain. A US Gold Certificate is another example of commodity money, it represented a claim on a measure of gold.

Gold Coin, which is different than gold bullion, is technically fiat money because its use, weights & measures are always established by "official decree." It is also technically using the barter system, bartering measures of gold for other things.

This article is confusing the "barter system" with the "monetary system". It is falsely branding the things commonly bartered as "money." Coin is coin (which is the name of a class/type of money), not commodity money... unless the coin represents a claim on a commodity like the shekel.

It also makes an incorrect distinction between commodity money and representative money. Commodity money IS representative money, but it is a specific kind of representative money that represents only a single kind of commodity. Many forms of representative money represent a group of commodities or assets (almost every modern Nations money supply is a form of representative money). Christopher Theodore (talk) 20:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Moved material

Commodity money is COMPOSED of the commodity. Thus, a lot of the stuff at the end of the article about "revival" of money based on resources, labor, or time, was really about representative money (another Wiki). I've moved it there, where it was already partly duplicated. I haven't deleted any material. Hope nobody's too offended, but I'm using the standard definitions which I think everybody agrees on.

By the way, when a nation's currency is traded like a commodity, that doesn't make the stuff commodity money. It's still fiat money, which is TRADED like a commodity. For developing nations, the value of such stuff ends up being set in effect not by fiat, but by the market, which makes the money nearly representative money (Cuban Peso = so much Cuban sugar, so far as other countries are concerned). But actually this is a bad example, as I'm not sure other countries will take any kind of Cuban money from Cuba. We may need to use another example of a developing country if this is the case. Cuba's international currency status is particularly bad. SBHarris 23:21, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. There are still too many tangentially related economic theories here. Let's only add cited material covering currency COMPOSED of a commodity --Wragge 09:31, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Disagreed. That definition confuses the "barter system" with the "monetary system", and this is not an article about the barter system, but an aspect of the monetary system. Commodity money is a form of representative money that represents a single commodity. The shekel is an example of commodity money, not because it is metal, but because it is a metal token that represented a claim on a measure of grain in the city states' warehouses. The US Gold Certificate is another, more modern example, of commodity money, it represented a claim on a measure of gold bullion in the Treasury. "Coin" is its own class of money and why it is a proper noun in the original Constitution. The use of Coin, their weights and measures, are established by "official decree," ergo, Coin is a specific form of fiat. Christopher Theodore (talk) 20:52, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually, here's a paragraph which talks entirely about paper money. I've moved it out of the article about 'commodity money' because this is really a discussion about 'commodity' & 'money' in a general sense. It's closely related to the subject of this article, but confusing to have here. I'm not sure where these ideas (when cleaned up) should go, but since it isn't about circulating commodities as cash it can't be here. The paragraph was....

For this reason, commodity money has remained active in the background in some form or another, and in a sense has been revived thanks to global capitalism, wherein a currency itself is widely traded in the same way as a commodity. In such trade, the currency of resource-rich nations tends to be tied to the price of those particular resources as commodity items (i.e., it becomes a kind of de facto representative money for the commodity), until the nation becomes a "developed nation". Thus, the value of the "fiat money" of (for example) Cuba in international markets is closely linked to the international value of the commodity "sugar", rather than to the nominal value set by government and military power of Cuba, which fix the value of Cuban currency within Cuba's borders.

If I'm wrong about this, please define what the subjects covered on 'commodity money' should include. --Wragge 09:46, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Some history

Added concerning commodity money. Some referenced citations to historical connections of law and city state society regarding commodity money. skip sievert (talk) 05:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The definition link is invalid, by the way: Sullivan, arthur; Steven M. Sheffrin (2022). Economics. Paramus, New Jersey: Savvas Learning Company ISBN 0-13-063085-3. https://www.savvas.com/index.cfm?locator=PS3jRm. Pestergaines (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The city-states of Sumer and the market

"The city-states of Sumer developed a trade and market economy..."

If by market we mean an allocation institution which sets prices. Now, if memory serves correct the Sumerians had what is called a "palace economy" in which prices were set administratively. If this is correct, then it would definitely rule out markets as being used by the Sumerians. I am not an expert in this area, I very well could be wrong. I leave it to other more intelligent people to decide. I just wanted to through the idea out there. 24.36.78.185 (talk) 21:48, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

English Mint

History section would benefit from the creation of banks by Whigs circa 1700 in England, and Newton running the mint at that time. I don't know this history at all but vaguely understand that was when England figured out the core idea of fiat money. 99.153.64.179 (talk) 03:16, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Value of Commodity Money

The article says:

commodity money, the coin retains its value if it is melted and physically altered

This implies the value of commodity money is determined by its material composition. That being so, it follows that the value of a commodity when "commodity money" is the same market price as its value when merely a commodity. But, if this is true, then the value of any finished coin would be exactly the same as the value of the unminted gold (of equal weight/purity) from which it was made, ie: the market price of gold. But if this is true then the minting of coins could occur only at a perpetual loss. As no sane person would do this, it follows that the minting of coins should NOT occur & coins should not exist. The same can be said for the production of any form of physical money, from paper notes, wooden tallies, clay tablets or iron bars. As this is obviously not the case, the value of any coin CANNOT be determined by its composition & therefore "commodity money" CANNOT exist. There is no commodity money. Vilhelmo (talk) 15:23, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

creation of commodity money, the money supply, and counterfeiting

I would like to see the topics of creation of commodity money, the money supply, and counterfeiting addressed explicitly and more directly. For example, if bags of barley are used as a commodity currency, was it OK to grow barley and add it to the money supply, or did some agreement prevent this from happening? Thanks! --Lbeaumont (talk) 13:59, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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Cannabis removal

I would remove "cannabis" in the second paragraph as an "example of commodities that have been used as mediums of exchange"... this devil weed could lead to schizophrenia... I am against the legalisation and commerce of such muck. 138.41.38.2 (talk) 10:32, 20 March 2017 (UTC) 138.41.38.2 (talk) 10:32, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

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To fix in this article

To fix in this article: the failure to provide a wikilink or definition for the word "specie." 173.88.246.138 (talk) 01:30, 7 May 2023 (UTC)