Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Money: Money in economics is anything that is generally accepted as a medium of exchange. It is used to buy and sell goods and services, and to store value. See also Markets, Economy._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Jean-Baptiste Say on Money - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard II 37 Money/Say/Rothbard: [Say] begins by setting forth a theory of how money originates that was later to be developed in a famous article by Carl Menger and would form the basis of the first chapter in every money and banking text for generations. Money, he pointed out, originates out of barter. To facilitate exchanges and overcome the difficulties of barter, people on the market begin to use particularly marketable commodities as media of exchange. Specifically, under barter everyone, in order to buy a product, must find someone who desires his own specific product, and this soon becomes very difficult. Example/Say: the cutler, finding he cannot persuade the baker to take an article he does not want, will use his best endeavours to have a commodity to offer, which the baker will be able readily to exchange again for whatever he may happen to need. If there exist in the society any specific commodity that is in general request, not merely on account of its inherent utility, but likewise on account of the readiness with which it is received in exchange for the Rothbard II 38 necessary articles of consumption... that commodity is precisely what the cutler will try to barter his knives for; because he has learnt from experience, that its possession will procure him without any difficulty, by a second act of exchange, bread or any article he may wish for.(1) That commodity is precisely the money in that society. Value of money/Say/Rothbard: Say follows the continental tradition of assimilating money to all other commodities; i.e., the value of money, as of all other commodities, is determined by the interaction of its supply and its demand. Inflation/Say: Say was a hard-money man, insistent that all paper must be instantly convertible into specie. Irredeemable paper expands rapidly in quantity and depreciates the value of the currency, and Say pointed to the recent issue by the revolutionary French government of the assignats, inconvertible paper that depreciated eventually to zero. Say was thus able to analyse one of the first examples of runaway inflation. Gold/silver/standard/Say/Rothbard: One of the splendid parts of Say's theory of money was his trenchant critique of bimetallism. He was insistent that the government's fixing the ratio of the weights of the two precious metals was doomed to failure, and only caused perpetual fluctuations and shortages of one or the other metals. Say called for parallel standards, that is, for freely fluctuating exchange rates between gold and silver. Gold standard/Say/Rothbard: So insistent was Say on separating money from government that he called for changing the national names of monies to actual units of weight of gold or silver e.g. grams instead of francs. 1. Say, Jean-Baptiste. Traité d’Economie Politique, Paris 1803._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
EconSay I Jean-Baptiste Say Traité d’ Economie Politique Paris 1803 Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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