Probably not as interesting as Yellow Dingo’s but its illustrative. I decided this week to try and encourage silver as a medium of exchange. I’ll leave out the why’s unless you ask me specific questions about it. It began with trying to buy coffee. The owner of the store was not interested in doing conversions on such a small purchase. Next I went to buy a pack of smokes, and the vender was happy to exchange for .45 cents of junk silver. She even had a scale. (It was a smoke shop). I tried a few other places, with mixed success. Overall, most people understood that silver was valuable, but only valuable in terms of dollars. They were also concerned that the value of silver in dollars changes. The only time the exchange is successful is when the person wishes to keep the silver. I eventually got some advice that I was subsidizing the exchange. Where they sold the silver would capture the gains, and I would be worse off.
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This is why capitalism doesnt work. Capitalism is supposed to be 'two independent parties coming to an exchange agreement where both feel they are getting fair recompense for what they bring to the table' This equation always works out appropriately for every scenario where what you're after is something you 'want' but don't expressly 'need'. Because you don't 'need it' you're more likely to only be willing to make the exchange if the deal is as close to fair as you think you can get... Like a paizo book or figurine.
Which is great until we're talking instead about what you 'need' instead of what you 'want'
Instead of talkign about big screen TVs and sofas... now we're talking about the roof over your head and heat or air conditioning, clean water, healthcare and food and possibly a car and gas (often considered a want and not a need.... lets see what happens to these things that are considered 'wants instead of needs')...
Instead what we have is 'Capitalism is two independent parties coming to an exchange agreement where one person has not just what you want but what you need and any attempt for the other person at the table to get anything remotely close to fair recompense for what you bring to the table was thrown out the window long ago, or was never worth anything to begin with. This 'thing' you bring to the table is a typically a miniscule amount of worthless paper given to you for what is believed to be the miniscule 40+ hours a week of your very life and breath.
It is believed that if you simply fight harder and come to the same table with the mentality that 'you will not accept a deal that is less than fair to you' that the deals themselves are inherently fair... Forgetting that if all you have is 40 hours of blood sweat and tears recompensed by barely adequate and nearly worthless monopoly money, it puts you in a position where you're attempting to acquire something you need using the only thing you've been compensated with: which is the one thing the 'haves' have no need for... More of your monopoly money.
Now we discover instead it has gotten so bad that things that may have intrinsic value like silver are judged on the monopoly money standard in which if that silver is in the hands of a person who is attempting to use it to barter to a person who has no immediate and pressing need for silver, the only way he will consider it fair and adequate payment is if he is compensated for his difficulty in turning it into what he may have need for, which laughably and hopefully in this instance is in fact more monopoly money, and in the exchange you take the loss on it. Fair exchange is now predicated on the defacto loss of the one in initial need under the threat that if you don't feel a fair deal is unfair, you can simply choose not to exchange... You're free to not get what you need. Unless you take the hit on both the price of what you need and the hassle of having to provide what you need to you in the first place, plus profit and interest... Have a nice day.
Not only do the have nots pay the price up front, but the secondary price/expense of 'the hassle' of having to cater to the have nots is attatched to the price as well or the 'haves' will still consider the exchange not to be a fair and adequate one. The person in initial need always pays not just for the thing he needs and the cost of doing business with him in the first place and profit and interest. This exchange is referred to as a free market economy and is considered fair.
If you don't like it you simply haven't been good enough at refusing to buy what you need for less than it's worth and haven't been good enough at withholding your goods and services unless you part with them under the same conditions that you are compensated for your silver or your labor with value that compensates not only your time and effort, plus the cost of providing that time and effort, plus profits, plus interest. Less than that and you will always lose. An inevitable downward spiral to failure.
Not only are the have nots forced to pay for the cost of the item plus the cost of doing business with them plus profits plus interest, but they are also forced to pay the blame of not having been canny or insistant or 'simply not needy enough' to hold out on filling that need until they too are in a position to not accept a deal that gives them not just adequate value for their monopoly money or their 40+ hours of labor, but they should have not settled for anything less than compensation for the trade in the amount of the value of their monopoly money, plus the cost of doing business (the roof over your head, heat, food, transportation, taxes, possible future medical expenses, retirement costs etc...) plus profit... Plus interest.
If you have failed to demand such value for your exchanges than it is not just too bad for you, but it is also 'your fault' for not having demanded it or for not being in a position to be able to make such demands.
And they wonder why so many people don't see the value in 'working' anymore... They've simply realized that they're not being properly compensated... and are hoping that somehow someone somewhere will 'force' the haves to make a fair deal again anytime soon. Whether thats an increase in minimum wage which is always only a temporary fix, or through labor unions which are being crushed as well. Its amazing how the haves hate the have nots making any attempt to get the 'fairness' out of the deal that they get themselves by being in a position not to deal unless they see all the profits from the exchange.
The oddest new movement is the upper middle class who thinks that the lower class simply haven't provided enough value... On the one hand they are admitting a belief that the 40 hours a week of lifeblood a burger flipper spends cooking them lunch is or the teacher who babysits their brat is less valuable than what they've provided. On the other hand they simply have not realized yet that the middle class is on its way down as well and that over time they soon will be forced into deals that are inexorably providing them less value for their time/effort/dollar/lifeblood. And not just by their government, but by those that continue to provide them with what they think they still need. Like healthcare...
So any time you hear a person who's well off complaining that they're not getting the 'value' that they used to get out of things like 'healthcare' just remind them that it's a song the less well off have been singing for decades before them.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the relatively well to do presumptuously 'more valuable' upper middle class...
And then they came for your guns! But they can pry your guns from your microwaved lazerblinded drone striked sizzled bacon dead body. That still don't mean you're gonna get a fair shake. Not if time has anything to say about it.
If the rich and the government (often the same people) have anything to say about it. It's only going to get worse for all of us who aren't them.
Ever.
And it's our fault.
Even if we're upper middle class for now.
Stay thirsty my friends... And hungry... And needy... And cold... and broken... and sick... And off my lawn... Ya bum.
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What is the "intrinsic value" of silver ?
Can I eat it ? Can I burn it to get warm ?
It's a good question. I wonder what the value of silver is beyond the 'want' industry....
What is the practical/chemical/metallurgical/industrial reason silver is more valuable than copper....Or is it simply considered more valuable because 'shiney!!!' which is a value based on want not need.
perspective (warning for shocking content not appropriate for all viewers]
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What is the "intrinsic value" of silver ?
Can I eat it ? Can I burn it to get warm ?
It's a good question. I wonder what the value of silver is beyond the 'want' industry....
What is the practical/chemical/metallurgical/industrial reason silver is more valuable than copper....
Or is it simply considered more valuable because 'shiney!!!' which is a value based on want not need.
It has more value because it is rarer (AFAIK). It sure was in the past.
Value is determined when offer meets demand. High value may mean high demand, but also rare offer.
Hi thejeff,
That's essentially the position of the people who didn't want to exchange for silver. I was briefly pretty sad about it. I may have forced the exchange for a loss some places, but it's not worth it to me. I can see the senario working easier if one of your employees was working under the table and wouldn't mind being paid in silver.
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I'm not seeing why this is a disheartening example. You offered an item that most users saw no value in possessing.
This is the reason why money was created. It is a neutral medium of exchange that "everyone" recognizes as having a preset value in order to make trading goods more efficient.
In other strange news of the week, you'll note a rare instance of agreement between thejeff and me.
Honestly, does no one study economics anymore?
Hi Doug's Workshop,
It is disheartening to try to do something with your beliefs in the real world and fail. It is much easier to argue on a message board about what money is and why it came about. That doesn't change what is used.
That was an interesting article LazarX.
I'm probably going to eject from thread. I feel my argument buttons getting pressed.
Lots of people try to do something with their beliefs and fail.
Business owners every single day close up shop, shutting down their dreams.
Would-be heralds see their prophecies unfulfilled, and question their belief system.
And some people try to get others to follow them only to find out their ideas aren't as widespread as hoped.
Welcome to life.
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Barter is alive and well just not in our mainstream markets. Go to a flea market or gun show and you can often find people happy to take your metals, stones, etc largely because they operate within an economy that values them. Cash, no matter it's "real value" is so much easier for most to deal with. And that is part of why no one has fought our devalued currency, whipping out a bill to pay is so much easier.
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Barter is alive and well just not in our mainstream markets. Go to a flea market or gun show and you can often find people happy to take your metals, stones, etc largely because they operate within an economy that values them. Cash, no matter it's "real value" is so much easier for most to deal with. And that is part of why no one has fought our devalued currency, whipping out a bill to pay is so much easier.What the OP was trying was not barter. He was trying to proferr his own created currency. BIG Difference.
He was trying to pay in junk silver by weight he said. that is barter.