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It seems to me that there are some key coverage areas that are missing from this article. Each of these above points is probably worth an article in and of themselves, but the main money article should at least let the reader know that these issues have to be considered for a fuller understanding of money.
Taking each of the 4 characteristics, one by one, I note:
I think the article could be made a little easier to read and evaluate if it were restructured. 18 main topics is a bit much. I might suggest the following reorganization based on the four characteristics? An explanation follows.
I know this has already been said, but it can't be stressed enough. This article really needs strong secondary source citations - e.g. well respected textbooks and journal articles. Encyclopedic websites aren't probably suitable unless their academic qualifications have been validated.
Egfrank 10:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
As noted above, there are far too many sections. I've merged "social evolution of money" into "history of money". I've also replaced the scrappy future of money section with one on currency unions. One section that should be reduced to a sentence or two, in my view is that on private currencies. Unless someone disagrees, I'll put it into history of money where it belongs. JQ 23:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
JQ - sounds right to me, perhaps it should be moved into the History of Money#Representative money section along with the link to the main article on private currencies.
But it may not be a good idea just to copy it wholesale. The last paragraph in particular, is problematic:
Egfrank 03:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not too enamored by this section. I think it should be taken out? Leigao84 16:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
this article defines money as having to be legally acceptable, yet in the History of money article it lists cigarettes as an example of money. Which is right? Kingturtle 11:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I Boldly deleted this section because it seemed to me to restate material presented earlier in a rather unencyclopedic tone. But I probably should have discussed before doing so. JQ 03:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I see the types of money section has been removed. I'm wondering if we could discuss this and consider putting it back. The stated reason is that it is redundant. I don't see this at all.
I do agree that there is some repetition ... rather than remove the types of money section, I would recommend that we deal with some of the redundancy by moving some of the pro/con stuff from the history of money section to the types of money section. There will, however, be a limit to the amount we can move because some of the concepts that rightly belong in a discussion of types of money are needed to understand the history.
Another possibility is to move the types of money section before the history of money section. This would reduce the need to explain types of money in the history section. I didn't do that earlier because most people have a concrete notion of money (money = currency) and so might find the "types of money" discussion a bit dry. I felt putting the history of money section first helps people make the transition from a concrete to an abstract understanding of money. Readers are more prepared for the more theoretical discussion after they have read the history section.
Egfrank 04:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
JEL: E4 - Money and Interest Rates JEL: E40 - General JEL: E41 - Demand for Money JEL: E42 - Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System JEL: E43 - Determination of Interest Rates; Term Structure of Interest Rates JEL: E44 - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy JEL: E47 - Forecasting and Simulation JEL: E49 - Other JEL: E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit JEL: E50 - General JEL: E51 - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers JEL: E52 - Monetary Policy (Targets, Instruments, and Effects) JEL: E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies JEL: E59 - Other
I've taken out "Money is universally valued; so much so, that we take its value as self-evident and in need of no explanation. because I felt it didn't add anything to the article. Anyone object?
Leigao84
17:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
The article, in its current state, does not meet GA criteria. Once necessary changes have been made, it can be renominated. Thank you for your hard work so far, and good luck with future edits. Regards, LaraLove T/ C 18:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
This article on money, over the past year, has gotten a lot better. There is less debate, more attention to fact, and less nonsense. Money is the ultimate expression of free market economics, and this article is being re-defined in a free market way. Part of the reason why some issues cannot be found in text books, is that the concept of money is being continually refined and redefined by society and the marketplace. The world right now is very confused about what money actually is. Can paper even be money, when paper is really a promise to pay money such as gold and silver, and what about today, when today's "paper money" is no longer even a promise to pay money?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.203.112 ( talk) 06:32, 8 June 2007
In its current reading I think that the article is listing too many things under the heading "Monetary Policy". Some of the actions like raising/lowering taxes or increasing/decreasing spending is rather to consider measures related to Fiscal Policy. -- Smallchanges 10:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
A suggestion on an interesting point that seems worth mentioning in this article and bringing out in the Fiat money article: As a concept Fiat money tends to work well when individuals acquiring money spend the majority of what they acquire within a relatively short period of time. But when the population at large has a tendency to save a high proportion of their earnings this tends to depress the economy in the long run (a problem China has traditionally had). This, of course, is why laws in some nations restrict inheritance from one generation to the next. All of this, though, would seem counter-intuitive to the average person since, the more money everybody saves, the richer they should be. But obviously, this is not true.
One interesting example of this phenomenon is the spending associated with the retired members of society. Because the money they spend (apart from social security) is derived from goods and services they produced many years in the past, that money is, in effect worthless (i.e. it mostly does not represent any product of any current value to society). Many argue that this is part of the reason that when a large number of people retire the economy becomes depressed. It is also why some people argue that shifting support of retirees to taxes instead of personal savings can actually be beneficial to an economy (controversial but interesting nevertheless).
Anyway, this seems like a significant aspect of fiat money that is less true with commodity money. This aspect is implied but not explicitly brought out in the articles as currently written.
-- Mcorazao 23:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why it should. There is nothing about fiat money that makes it inherently less representative of products or services of value to a society. Since those things are ultimately what back it, and what it can be traded for (two ways of saying the same thing). There's no fundamental difference between saving fiat money, savings bonds, gold certificates, or gold itself for your retirement. Any problems China has with currency lie in how much currency it prints, not in the fact that people save that currency. The currency is devalued only if you print new stuff to replace the old stuff that is out of circulation, pretending that it was destroyed. But if isn't, then you end up with inflation later when it's eventually put back into circulation. But that's your error. The problem is not savings, but failure to allow for savings in expanding the circulating money supply. S B H arris 05:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, why is there no section critical of money and money systems? No economic alternatives are suggested either, and a contrast with barter might be worth inclusion too. Any input on this? Oposie ( talk) 20:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
how much money exists in the world in dollars? in Euros? -- Emesee ( talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I looked up the following citation to the U.S. Code about how melting coins is now outlawed. This is a real phenomenon that was recently mentioned on 60 minutes; can we find a place to add it back in?
Melting of coins, in particular pennies, is still a concern in the United States, so much so that the United States Mint has outlawed the practice <ref>[http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title31/31cfr82_main_02.tpl 31 CFR Part 82, 72 FR 61055], also [http://regulations.justia.com/view/93493/ http://regulations.justia.com/view/93493/]</ref>. -- JoeLibrarian ( talk) 01:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Added this link http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfx7rfr2_211crx6c26k Money-History. This I think compliments the article with a perspective that is different than traditional. skip sievert ( talk) 03:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
At present, the article will confuse and mislead the reader, by virtue of treating being the unit of account and being the standard of deferred payment as the same thing.
Some eristic might counter-argue that in such case the nation had no money at all (the eristic claiming that money ex definitione has all four functions), but the fact will remain that the functions themselves are distinct. — SlamDiego ←T 13:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Some of these ideas were very popular at the beginning of the 20th century and through the thirties and forties. Recently more attention is being given again to non economic systems that are connected with alternative social design (science based).
It was suggested that a 'critical section' as to money be added. Before that section is taken off it should be discussed here. This concept of energy accounting is notable. There was a large movement in the United States and in other areas of the world toward it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic) skip sievert ( talk) 17:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I do not follow your logic. The whole concept of energy accounting is based on the criticism of money. It is not monetization of energy as this article explains http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate. Please read the article and you may see this point. There is no connection to a monetization of energy... and that was not the point of putting this criticism section here as one way of critiquing money. Not sure of your definition of a rational person... but many rational people are critical of money and its mechanics and a rather large social movement has suggested alternatives to it technocracy movement. So if you don't mind I will be reversing your edit. If you examine this talk page a bit further up this was a suggested idea for the article. skip sievert ( talk) 17:58, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I am open to suggestions... lets play with it and get some kind of section for criticism that can include these ideas. Because this one proposed (energy accounting) is well known and getting more attention recently, it seems like a good addition. Feel free to rewrite the section to better effect. I think the non market economic aspect of this as to the article is the least important part. Actual energy accounting perhaps is the interesting aspect. This idea is well thought out, and has been kicked around since 1934 in the Technocracy Study Course. Maybe we could do a mock up section here on the talk page... and edit it together... and perhaps ask others here also for input? This makes for some interesting reading on the subject Technocracy (bureaucratic) skip sievert ( talk) 18:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Here is a possible starting point for the new section... please feel free to edit this and with some feed back start a section on the criticism of money.
The Energy Certificate. (reference)The Technate design as projected, would include such post scarcity aspects as free housing ( urbanates), transportation, recreation, and education. In other words free everything, including all consumer products, as a right of citizenship. Energy is used as an accounting system in this proposal and not a reward or punishment societal mechanism. Because some view money as being an unreliable tool of measurement as regards social and ecological concerns, this alternative concept could be an alternative to money in the future.
-end section skip sievert ( talk) 21:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes ?... but this is a criticism of money section and I am not sure how more critical than rejecting the idea altogether any thing can get. It is also explained why it is rejected http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate in the foot note or reference that would go into this segment. Energy Accounting also is an articulate program... developed by some of the very top American scientists of the Twentieth century... Technical Alliance. The part about non market economics does not even have to be in there... but it is connected and relevant. This segment is designed to break the flow of the article in the sense that it is a contrary perspective and critical perspective... so it really can not be in accordance with the body of the article. It is a criticism aspect. This uniquely American criticism and suggestion for an alternative economic system would improve this article. I am not exactly sure how you can say It's also not really a criticism of money, or even of monetism..... Really if you care to follow some of the connected links... it is just about the most overt criticism of money I have ever come upon. Technocracy movement skip sievert ( talk) 02:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Pardon but you do not seem to be reading the material presented. You do not seem to understand that this is not a monetary system. It is a different concept which is not only critical of money it rejects money as being not able to work in the future. No real criticism of money ? Huh? This is another reference link that may be good http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan Great lakes Technocrat April 1944, # 66 I do not think you read the article on energy accounting http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate... How any one can not read that and think it is not critical of money I am not sure. However this could be an issue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OWN Wikipedia:Ownership of articles... I hope not... but you have not cooperated to create or improve any alternative aspect to this article. Please look up this term ... Price System skip sievert ( talk) 15:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Criticisms of money
The term price system is used to describe any economic system whatsoever that effects its distribution of goods and services by means of goods and services having prices and employing any form of debt tokens, or money. Alternative proposals for a non market economic system called Energy Accounting which uses a post scarcity type of economy as its basis have existed for some time.(reference link) http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm Article on alternative system to money 'energy accounting'</ref>The Technate design as projected by Technocracy Incorporated, would include such post scarcity aspects as free housing ( urbanates), transportation, recreation, and education. In other words free everything, including all consumer products, as a right of citizenship. Energy is used as an accounting system in this proposal and not a reward or punishment societal mechanism as money could be considered as being used currently. Because some view money as being an unreliable tool of measurement as regards social and ecological concerns, this alternative concept could be an alternative to money in the future. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan Great lakes Technocrat April 1944, # 66 (reference link). skip sievert ( talk) 15:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
There is no connection to communism and the issues I have brought up. Communism is a Price System that used the Ruble. I wonder that you may not have read the material presented. This article is about money and it is normal to present a critical view of a subject. Not start a new topic or article within the article.... like your suggestion. Am I talking about an article title concerned with non monetary economics here? I do not think so. I did not start or originate any of these articles. I am not interested in renaming that article either. It is not the issue. I am going to add the section. It is not written in stone. I have asked you to help me write it. Please do... but please follow up on the subject of reading the basic information skip sievert ( talk) 20:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Well... thanks for leaving the section now. I think it is referenced well. It would seem to me that this essay article, published some time ago, could be considered a scathing negative review of money ... within the context of the addition (Criticism of money). http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan Great lakes Technocrat April 1944, # 66.... and this reference point also points toward a critical assessment of money that is pretty stark... # ^ Stabile, Donald R. "Veblen and the Political Economy of the Engineer: the radical thinker and engineering leaders came to technocratic ideas at the same time," American Journal of Economics and Sociology (45:1) 1986, 43-44..... Any way... feel free to edit what I have done if interested... I am going to look at it some more and maybe I can think of a different perspective to come at it. I am not that familiar with Communism as you have written about it. I do know that it is a reactionary concept and a rejection of Capitalism... but since both are similar to each other (price systems) at least as practiced... I was not thinking of adding any communist aspect in the criticism of money section. I know the Communist ideas glorified human labor... and that in a way it is a spin off of Adam Smith in that way, at least as practiced. The main argument against 18th and 19th century economics as near as I can tell... is that purchasing power is destroyed by Technology and particularly energy conversion. Jobs are eliminated by mechanization. It is true that a human can put out about 1/20th of a horse power or about 33 watts... and a machine, even a simple machine like a refrigerator uses about a quarter horse power... and works 24 hours a day.. without complaint, hence productivity is measured in machine and not human power any more. - That article http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificateon Energy Accounting by Fezer also seems to take money to task in a very overt way.
Interesting aside as far as science fiction... the creator of Star Trek.. G.R. was in telephone contact with the head quarters of Technocracy Incorporated on a regular basis and was friends with one of the office managers there in the 60's. I think his name was Berge, now deceased. That is a story I heard by someone in that organization. skip sievert ( talk) 00:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
References
I found some interesting information that I would like to integrate Arthur. This page has a lot of associated information that expands further what I was describing... to a degree that I was unaware of till now. http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics - Encyclopedia of Earth -- Is this site an appropriate site to use as a reference source... citation source ? And if so.... I was thinking of naming some scientific names... and basic concepts .. expanding on the thermodynamic mention I did and making perhaps a paragraph of material from this huge reference. Your opinion? I am for sure going to use some of this information for some other related wikipedia sites dealing more with Technocratic ideas. skip sievert ( talk) 15:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, this link expands information. Another admin. ed. said it looks allright to use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wafulz#citation_reference_link skip sievert ( talk) 18:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Payment in energy merely makes energy money. Energy is practically infinitely divisible (you ain't buying anything with a quanta), energy can be stored, physicists know it can be a unit of account, and it could be generally accepted. While it wouldn't have the same characteristics as fiat money, it's still money. Relaxing the "generally accepted" condition just makes it barter. Energy also has the unfavorable restriction that there is not necessarily free disposal, which causes problems on the electrical grid sometimes. Note that barter isn't the only alternative to money - most communities (such as households) resolve debts in terms of social obligations (eg "I'll wash the dishes for you if you take the kids to practice for me if I need you to"). Technically, this relaxes the "unit of account" measure and the "store of value" as without account, you cant tell if the value is stored. This system of social obligations dominated feudal societies, and really only broke down when specialization of labor required us to transact with more people than we could maintain social obligations with. In non-market economies, such as the Soviet Union, obligation systems (eg blat (Russia)) arose when money and markets couldn't operate effectively. If pressed, I could probably source the papers or books from undergrad economics for the empirics, but the logic should be clear to anyone. Another system, which violates many of the principles of economics (namely sub-game perfect equilibria) is what I'd call the "token and respect trading." If you've ever been to another country, you've probably had a situation where you're meeting some stranger, and you trade tokens more for souvenir or sentimental value, despite their market value being grossly disproportional. Don't know if I can source that theory though... Bagsc ( talk) 13:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Most of the links above are irrelevant. Again, "Technocracy" is not notable as a school of economic thought, mainstream or otherwise. An editor who believes otherwise needs to cite several reliable sources explicitly stating otherwise and, in the context of this article, demonstrate Technocracy's criticisms of money using reliable sources. There is nothing above clarifying why the criticism from Hubbert is of money per se and not GNP, and even if Hubbert had criticized money that would still not be notable unless many others had remarked on that criticism in reliable sources.
On this basis, I have deleted the criticism and alternatives sections. Sked123 ( talk) 17:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Would this be an interesting addition toward the end of the article? The future of Money? What about this link and some of this information... and related links off this link? http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/06/17/singularity-economics-and-the-future-of-money/ Singularity economics and the future of money. skip sievert ( talk) 13:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
`
The false claim that "Money is not just a scarce good, or a good used in transactions, or a weight metric. One of Money's essential properties is that it has a mark of the authority that coins it." needs to be sourced. It's clearly untrue. A fixed weight of a precious metal need only have an assay mark to constitute "commodity money".
I'm not tagging only that statement, because he's added a number of other unsourced statements, and I'm heading away from my computer for most of the day, shortly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I did a redo of the history section. I think it may be more comprehensible now possibly. I still have to make some footnotes and or citation links. Here it is so far. The Emergence of money
The use of barter like methods may date back to at least 100,000 years ago. To organize production and to distribute goods and services among their populations, pre-market economies relied on tradition, top-down command, or community cooperation. Relations of reciprocity and/or redistribution substituted for market exchange.
Trading in red ochre is attested in Swaziland. Shell jewellery in the form of strung beads also dates back to this period and had the basic attributes needed of commodity money.
The Shekel referred to an ancient unit of weight and currency. The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC. and referred to a specific mass of barley which related other values in a metric. A barley/shekel was originally both a unit of currency and a unit of weight... just as the British Pound was originally a unit denominating a one pound mass of silver.
According to Herodotus, and most modern scholars, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver Coin. It is thought that these first stamped coins were minted around 650-600 BC. A stater coin was made in the stater (trite) denomination. To complement the stater, fractions were made: the trite (third), the hekte (sixth), and so forth in lower denominations.
The name of Croesus of Lydia became synonymous with wealth in antiquity. Sardis was renowned as a beautiful city. Around 550 BC, Croesus contributed money for the construction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
The first banknotes were used in China in the 7th century, and the first in Europe was issued by Stockholms Banco in 1661.
Thoughts and ideas for the next phase? skip sievert ( talk) 15:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Note that the three characteristics given are all functional. They don't preclude gains of barley or cigarettes being used for money. S B H arris 23:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Wow. You are a patient person Sbharris and your information is correct. Good job of explaining some basic aspects of money to Proto-money. I would suggest that Sbharris is not only the rhetorical victor here as to this interpretation of what money actually is... but the literal scholarly victor ... objective victor .. and literal factual presenting victor. What he is saying is objective... accurate.. conforms with neutral thinking also on this subject. Proto-money... you may want to suspend your judgment and read this file. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfx7rfr2_211crx6c26k Money-History&Energy Accounting-TNAT The North American Technate. ... not as a reference for the article in particular and I am not suggesting including material from it ... but just as a general reference to the way money works... where it came from.. etc. Excerpt: The masses in Mesopotamia, however, seldom dealt in such money (silver). It was simply too precious. To pay their bills, water carriers, estate workers, fishers, and farmers relied on more modest forms of money. Copper, tin, lead, and above all, barley. It was the cheap commodity money. Barley functioned in ancient Mesopotamia like small change in later systems, like the bronze currencies in the Hellenistic period.
Also the area that explains Sumeria and barley and how barley was used in conjunction to weight on scales relative to silver... and other precious things like bronze lead etc in the first civil society.
It looks to me like my edit should be restored... made before the last one in the history section. This current edit below in the History of Money section by proto-money :
It is unhistorical to consider an object used in transactions as money, without this object to have the mark of the person, of the society or of the authority which coined it. Money is not, and has never been, "anonymous". We always knew which authority (or who) was behind it.There was always someone who controlled the circulation and the number of money objects, there was always someone who was using it in order to receive taxes from it. Any object without the above properties cannot be considered as money.
I am afraid this borders on nonsense or gibberish... and should be removed immediately. skip sievert ( talk) 02:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Have a look at this a very interesting article [3] by Reid Goldsborough. As you can see other people also disagree the way we are.
According your definition, women are also money!!! :-) Protomoney ( talk) 09:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Obsidian, a type of volcanic glass or hardened lava, is one of many materials that were used as money before coins and afterward. (Photo courtesy of Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.)
No one here is denying where coined money came from (Lydia) and that it was stamped a certain way. I mention that in my history of money section in the money article.
I sincerely hope that an admin editor comes here and reverses your edit proto-money. Right now it does not conform to objective ... factual... neutral... information. skip sievert ( talk) 13:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Can you make sense of this?
It is unhistorical to consider an object used in transactions as money, without this object to have the mark of the person, of the society or of the authority which coined it. Money is not, and has never been, "anonymous". We always knew which authority (or who) was behind it.There was always someone who controlled the circulation and the number of money objects, there was always someone who was using it in order to receive taxes from it. Any object without the above properties cannot be considered as money. current edit.
Arthur could you make the Rfd? Or, as I am making a case, just revert the edit, or ask another admin ed. to do it that is not involved, but could just read through the contention... for reasons mentioned... currently, because the present edit is gibberish or nonsense? skip sievert ( talk) 14:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry but the section as written does not make sense. Now either. Croesus never conquered Lydia as it is written now. He was the king there. As far as experts agreeing with your opinion.. I do not think so. Also I am not going by my opinion... I am going by the facts. This should not be about your opinion either. So no, that is not O.K.
As to your opinion here about as to whether money can consist of material with intrinsic value without a certifying authority, or whether it requires a "trusted" certifying authority the very question does not really make sense and I would call the question a non issue.. a non starter... and possibly gibberish... and no it should not be in an article, which is trying to explain actual ideas as to the subject of the history of money.
Too sum it up, I do think that what you have written should not be in the edit... and that for starters, the edit that I made.. in full, without the additions you have made, should be restored so that then I can add some citations and footnotes etc. Right now the edit there is not accurate... does not make sense... and is contradictory to any history of money I have ever seen. skip sievert ( talk) 18:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Redone,... with a couple of pictures... and lots of reference citations for the new material. Here is an example of a citation link that I made that now gets the ideas across (I hope) for the Lion Stater from Lydia being the first ... what is considered... marked with a picture or writing coin. Here is the link http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html Goldsborough, Reid. "World's First Coin". I also added a few other citation refs. skip sievert ( talk) 22:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC))
As near as I can tell Protomoney you have pretty much destroyed all the good work that has been done on this article. You have a strange sense of history . It is not neutral. It is like you are not even in the right topic here. Nothing you are doing makes particular sense. The information about One of the first Greek coins were the"Swastika" [8] ,,,,, look sorta of crazy or gibberish or nonsense like. skip sievert ( talk) 22:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
You have taken off the interesting pictures that were here previously. It looks pretty non sense like and really bad now. You have completely gone against the previous consensus when you were pretty much told by a number of people not to do what you are doing because it was not factual or accurate or neutral or etc. etc. etc.. The article looks and feels like hell now. I hope someone reverts it back to my last edit when by all agreement here, the main people working on this agreed that it looked good and contained good information. Protomoney.... why are you doing this? You ruined the article. skip sievert ( talk) 22:51, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
(←–)
No... it is not questionable. Money is any thing you want it to be that has perceived value. That included barley or silver or shells. Your work on this article is nonsense based or opinion based and has nothing to do with history ... neutrality or well rounded opinion even. You have completely gone against the others that formed a consensus that your edits are not just unhelpful they are inaccurate... misleading.. and not really even connected. skip sievert ( talk) 02:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
This is an example of something that does not make sense. A Protomoney (the editor)... edit.
When money was invented in Greeκ area, silver was used to create coins. Silver was at that time a rather useless metal used only in jewels, but it was scarce and difficult to counterfeit. Αlthough now days silver is considered as a commodity, it was not a commodity at the time. Silver coins represented the old commodity money of iron sticks, a useful metal used in war (see Heraion of Argos). The mark of the king or of the Democracy was used as assurance that these useless silver tokens were iron's replacements[1]. In that sense, money was a representative and not a commodity thing from the beginning. end quote... ok.... ugh... thats it.
Could someone revert the whole article back to where he was not editing 24 hours ago or a couple days ago now I guess. And please Protomoney, since it is evident that you do not write English so well ... but even more an issue.. you do not understand much of the historical aspects of this subject... plus, you are completely at odds with what is given information about basic aspects of ideas connected with money... would you cease and desist your current paste in contributions that make no sense. skip sievert ( talk) 21:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
It looks like this is about the point where the article lost it, and it was a while back... http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Money&diff=prev&oldid=230114054 Money - ... So went back to that consensus point as discussed with another involved editor. skip sievert ( talk) 03:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I will source these better although see the section above. To remove that information diminishes the article. It is notable. It is a major branch of thinking as to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-market_economics Non-market economics and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity Post scarcity concepts. Just because it does not fit into Mainstream economics... apparently what you know most about... does not mean that this is not important information... which gives the article a little more depth. Read this please. http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm ECONOMY AND THERMODYNAMICS and this... http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics and please allow some more references to be put in ... although that section is well referenced now. The person that removed the information may not be familiar with these now mainstream ideas... Energy Accounting invented by Technocracy Incorporated but that does not mean they are not notable and significant.
Added this link now into to this area discussed http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm ECONOMY AND THERMODYNAMICS. This is an excerpt..
For that we should reach a consensus about value, by weighting advisedly all the variables. Some idea like that certainly has occurred as soon the Law of Conservation of Energy was established in 1870. I cannot perform a thorough search, but I would suggest a starting point in the writings of Stuart Mill, Spencer and Balfour Stewart.
Explicitly, a similar idea occurred to Frederick Soddy in 1922. He wrote that the price of a merchandise reflect, directly or not, the energy invested in its production. (Today, he would say available energy). The same idea was proposed by Howard Scott during the Great Depression of the 30's. And now it surfaces with the ecological movement since the 60's, while emphasizing the erroneous use of planet's resources. An indirect consequence of this idea is the analysis of industrial processes by net energy use, taking into account all the energy involved since the extraction of natural resources and the "primary" energy. This approach is gaining adepts.
I added the wiki links. Repeating over and over that something is not notable and then deleting valuable and interesting information does not further knowledge of the topic in discussion. Money. There is now a ref. citation (In both sections) that mentions in detail the most notable of the groups that were related to the introduction of the concepts of Energy Accounting and more wiki article information links also.
Sked... you apparently have not read any of the info provided... here is another excerpt from one of the reference citations. http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics - Encyclopedia of Earth
The use of energy as a unifying concept for social, political and economic analysis reached a zenith with the technocratic movement in the USA and Canada during the 1930s. Led by the flamboyant and energetic Howard Scott, the Technocracy movement began in 1918 as a group called the Technical Alliance. The Alliance conducted an industrial survey of North America in which economic parameters were measured in energy units rather than dollars. Although the Alliance lasted only a few years, the Depression provided fertile ground for the re-emergence of the technocratic movement which used depressed economic conditions as a rallying point for their call for a complete overhaul of existing economic and political institutions. In 1921, Howard Scott and others formed Technocracy, Inc., and in conjunction with the Industrial Engineering Department at Columbia University, began an empirical analysis of production and employment in North America in energy units. The association with a prestigious university like Columbia combined with Scott’s flamboyant relationship with the press made Technocracy internationally famous. skip sievert ( talk) 18:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I see you just reverted the information after even more sourcing was put in. You called it fringe material. I would say that because you are unfamiliar or do not understand this material that does not make it fringe material. You may be a classically trained economist... but that does not mean that only mainstream economics has a right to be presented to the public. You have diminished the information in the article. I reverted you. You have not apparently read any of the information provided. Please take a look at this article also before calling this fringe Technocracy (bureaucratic)... skip sievert ( talk) 18:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
It seems to me that there are some key coverage areas that are missing from this article. Each of these above points is probably worth an article in and of themselves, but the main money article should at least let the reader know that these issues have to be considered for a fuller understanding of money.
Taking each of the 4 characteristics, one by one, I note:
I think the article could be made a little easier to read and evaluate if it were restructured. 18 main topics is a bit much. I might suggest the following reorganization based on the four characteristics? An explanation follows.
I know this has already been said, but it can't be stressed enough. This article really needs strong secondary source citations - e.g. well respected textbooks and journal articles. Encyclopedic websites aren't probably suitable unless their academic qualifications have been validated.
Egfrank 10:04, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
As noted above, there are far too many sections. I've merged "social evolution of money" into "history of money". I've also replaced the scrappy future of money section with one on currency unions. One section that should be reduced to a sentence or two, in my view is that on private currencies. Unless someone disagrees, I'll put it into history of money where it belongs. JQ 23:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
JQ - sounds right to me, perhaps it should be moved into the History of Money#Representative money section along with the link to the main article on private currencies.
But it may not be a good idea just to copy it wholesale. The last paragraph in particular, is problematic:
Egfrank 03:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not too enamored by this section. I think it should be taken out? Leigao84 16:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
this article defines money as having to be legally acceptable, yet in the History of money article it lists cigarettes as an example of money. Which is right? Kingturtle 11:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I Boldly deleted this section because it seemed to me to restate material presented earlier in a rather unencyclopedic tone. But I probably should have discussed before doing so. JQ 03:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I see the types of money section has been removed. I'm wondering if we could discuss this and consider putting it back. The stated reason is that it is redundant. I don't see this at all.
I do agree that there is some repetition ... rather than remove the types of money section, I would recommend that we deal with some of the redundancy by moving some of the pro/con stuff from the history of money section to the types of money section. There will, however, be a limit to the amount we can move because some of the concepts that rightly belong in a discussion of types of money are needed to understand the history.
Another possibility is to move the types of money section before the history of money section. This would reduce the need to explain types of money in the history section. I didn't do that earlier because most people have a concrete notion of money (money = currency) and so might find the "types of money" discussion a bit dry. I felt putting the history of money section first helps people make the transition from a concrete to an abstract understanding of money. Readers are more prepared for the more theoretical discussion after they have read the history section.
Egfrank 04:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
JEL: E4 - Money and Interest Rates JEL: E40 - General JEL: E41 - Demand for Money JEL: E42 - Monetary Systems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System JEL: E43 - Determination of Interest Rates; Term Structure of Interest Rates JEL: E44 - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy JEL: E47 - Forecasting and Simulation JEL: E49 - Other JEL: E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit JEL: E50 - General JEL: E51 - Money Supply; Credit; Money Multipliers JEL: E52 - Monetary Policy (Targets, Instruments, and Effects) JEL: E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies JEL: E59 - Other
I've taken out "Money is universally valued; so much so, that we take its value as self-evident and in need of no explanation. because I felt it didn't add anything to the article. Anyone object?
Leigao84
17:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
The article, in its current state, does not meet GA criteria. Once necessary changes have been made, it can be renominated. Thank you for your hard work so far, and good luck with future edits. Regards, LaraLove T/ C 18:15, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
This article on money, over the past year, has gotten a lot better. There is less debate, more attention to fact, and less nonsense. Money is the ultimate expression of free market economics, and this article is being re-defined in a free market way. Part of the reason why some issues cannot be found in text books, is that the concept of money is being continually refined and redefined by society and the marketplace. The world right now is very confused about what money actually is. Can paper even be money, when paper is really a promise to pay money such as gold and silver, and what about today, when today's "paper money" is no longer even a promise to pay money?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.203.112 ( talk) 06:32, 8 June 2007
In its current reading I think that the article is listing too many things under the heading "Monetary Policy". Some of the actions like raising/lowering taxes or increasing/decreasing spending is rather to consider measures related to Fiscal Policy. -- Smallchanges 10:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
A suggestion on an interesting point that seems worth mentioning in this article and bringing out in the Fiat money article: As a concept Fiat money tends to work well when individuals acquiring money spend the majority of what they acquire within a relatively short period of time. But when the population at large has a tendency to save a high proportion of their earnings this tends to depress the economy in the long run (a problem China has traditionally had). This, of course, is why laws in some nations restrict inheritance from one generation to the next. All of this, though, would seem counter-intuitive to the average person since, the more money everybody saves, the richer they should be. But obviously, this is not true.
One interesting example of this phenomenon is the spending associated with the retired members of society. Because the money they spend (apart from social security) is derived from goods and services they produced many years in the past, that money is, in effect worthless (i.e. it mostly does not represent any product of any current value to society). Many argue that this is part of the reason that when a large number of people retire the economy becomes depressed. It is also why some people argue that shifting support of retirees to taxes instead of personal savings can actually be beneficial to an economy (controversial but interesting nevertheless).
Anyway, this seems like a significant aspect of fiat money that is less true with commodity money. This aspect is implied but not explicitly brought out in the articles as currently written.
-- Mcorazao 23:24, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't see why it should. There is nothing about fiat money that makes it inherently less representative of products or services of value to a society. Since those things are ultimately what back it, and what it can be traded for (two ways of saying the same thing). There's no fundamental difference between saving fiat money, savings bonds, gold certificates, or gold itself for your retirement. Any problems China has with currency lie in how much currency it prints, not in the fact that people save that currency. The currency is devalued only if you print new stuff to replace the old stuff that is out of circulation, pretending that it was destroyed. But if isn't, then you end up with inflation later when it's eventually put back into circulation. But that's your error. The problem is not savings, but failure to allow for savings in expanding the circulating money supply. S B H arris 05:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, why is there no section critical of money and money systems? No economic alternatives are suggested either, and a contrast with barter might be worth inclusion too. Any input on this? Oposie ( talk) 20:52, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
how much money exists in the world in dollars? in Euros? -- Emesee ( talk) 22:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I looked up the following citation to the U.S. Code about how melting coins is now outlawed. This is a real phenomenon that was recently mentioned on 60 minutes; can we find a place to add it back in?
Melting of coins, in particular pennies, is still a concern in the United States, so much so that the United States Mint has outlawed the practice <ref>[http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&tpl=/ecfrbrowse/Title31/31cfr82_main_02.tpl 31 CFR Part 82, 72 FR 61055], also [http://regulations.justia.com/view/93493/ http://regulations.justia.com/view/93493/]</ref>. -- JoeLibrarian ( talk) 01:47, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Added this link http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfx7rfr2_211crx6c26k Money-History. This I think compliments the article with a perspective that is different than traditional. skip sievert ( talk) 03:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
At present, the article will confuse and mislead the reader, by virtue of treating being the unit of account and being the standard of deferred payment as the same thing.
Some eristic might counter-argue that in such case the nation had no money at all (the eristic claiming that money ex definitione has all four functions), but the fact will remain that the functions themselves are distinct. — SlamDiego ←T 13:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Some of these ideas were very popular at the beginning of the 20th century and through the thirties and forties. Recently more attention is being given again to non economic systems that are connected with alternative social design (science based).
It was suggested that a 'critical section' as to money be added. Before that section is taken off it should be discussed here. This concept of energy accounting is notable. There was a large movement in the United States and in other areas of the world toward it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_%28bureaucratic%29 Technocracy (bureaucratic) skip sievert ( talk) 17:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I do not follow your logic. The whole concept of energy accounting is based on the criticism of money. It is not monetization of energy as this article explains http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate. Please read the article and you may see this point. There is no connection to a monetization of energy... and that was not the point of putting this criticism section here as one way of critiquing money. Not sure of your definition of a rational person... but many rational people are critical of money and its mechanics and a rather large social movement has suggested alternatives to it technocracy movement. So if you don't mind I will be reversing your edit. If you examine this talk page a bit further up this was a suggested idea for the article. skip sievert ( talk) 17:58, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I am open to suggestions... lets play with it and get some kind of section for criticism that can include these ideas. Because this one proposed (energy accounting) is well known and getting more attention recently, it seems like a good addition. Feel free to rewrite the section to better effect. I think the non market economic aspect of this as to the article is the least important part. Actual energy accounting perhaps is the interesting aspect. This idea is well thought out, and has been kicked around since 1934 in the Technocracy Study Course. Maybe we could do a mock up section here on the talk page... and edit it together... and perhaps ask others here also for input? This makes for some interesting reading on the subject Technocracy (bureaucratic) skip sievert ( talk) 18:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Here is a possible starting point for the new section... please feel free to edit this and with some feed back start a section on the criticism of money.
The Energy Certificate. (reference)The Technate design as projected, would include such post scarcity aspects as free housing ( urbanates), transportation, recreation, and education. In other words free everything, including all consumer products, as a right of citizenship. Energy is used as an accounting system in this proposal and not a reward or punishment societal mechanism. Because some view money as being an unreliable tool of measurement as regards social and ecological concerns, this alternative concept could be an alternative to money in the future.
-end section skip sievert ( talk) 21:33, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes ?... but this is a criticism of money section and I am not sure how more critical than rejecting the idea altogether any thing can get. It is also explained why it is rejected http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate in the foot note or reference that would go into this segment. Energy Accounting also is an articulate program... developed by some of the very top American scientists of the Twentieth century... Technical Alliance. The part about non market economics does not even have to be in there... but it is connected and relevant. This segment is designed to break the flow of the article in the sense that it is a contrary perspective and critical perspective... so it really can not be in accordance with the body of the article. It is a criticism aspect. This uniquely American criticism and suggestion for an alternative economic system would improve this article. I am not exactly sure how you can say It's also not really a criticism of money, or even of monetism..... Really if you care to follow some of the connected links... it is just about the most overt criticism of money I have ever come upon. Technocracy movement skip sievert ( talk) 02:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Pardon but you do not seem to be reading the material presented. You do not seem to understand that this is not a monetary system. It is a different concept which is not only critical of money it rejects money as being not able to work in the future. No real criticism of money ? Huh? This is another reference link that may be good http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan Great lakes Technocrat April 1944, # 66 I do not think you read the article on energy accounting http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificate... How any one can not read that and think it is not critical of money I am not sure. However this could be an issue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OWN Wikipedia:Ownership of articles... I hope not... but you have not cooperated to create or improve any alternative aspect to this article. Please look up this term ... Price System skip sievert ( talk) 15:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Criticisms of money
The term price system is used to describe any economic system whatsoever that effects its distribution of goods and services by means of goods and services having prices and employing any form of debt tokens, or money. Alternative proposals for a non market economic system called Energy Accounting which uses a post scarcity type of economy as its basis have existed for some time.(reference link) http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm Article on alternative system to money 'energy accounting'</ref>The Technate design as projected by Technocracy Incorporated, would include such post scarcity aspects as free housing ( urbanates), transportation, recreation, and education. In other words free everything, including all consumer products, as a right of citizenship. Energy is used as an accounting system in this proposal and not a reward or punishment societal mechanism as money could be considered as being used currently. Because some view money as being an unreliable tool of measurement as regards social and ecological concerns, this alternative concept could be an alternative to money in the future. http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan Great lakes Technocrat April 1944, # 66 (reference link). skip sievert ( talk) 15:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
There is no connection to communism and the issues I have brought up. Communism is a Price System that used the Ruble. I wonder that you may not have read the material presented. This article is about money and it is normal to present a critical view of a subject. Not start a new topic or article within the article.... like your suggestion. Am I talking about an article title concerned with non monetary economics here? I do not think so. I did not start or originate any of these articles. I am not interested in renaming that article either. It is not the issue. I am going to add the section. It is not written in stone. I have asked you to help me write it. Please do... but please follow up on the subject of reading the basic information skip sievert ( talk) 20:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Well... thanks for leaving the section now. I think it is referenced well. It would seem to me that this essay article, published some time ago, could be considered a scathing negative review of money ... within the context of the addition (Criticism of money). http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/I%20Am%20The%20Price%20System-r.HTM I Am The Price System R. B. Langan Great lakes Technocrat April 1944, # 66.... and this reference point also points toward a critical assessment of money that is pretty stark... # ^ Stabile, Donald R. "Veblen and the Political Economy of the Engineer: the radical thinker and engineering leaders came to technocratic ideas at the same time," American Journal of Economics and Sociology (45:1) 1986, 43-44..... Any way... feel free to edit what I have done if interested... I am going to look at it some more and maybe I can think of a different perspective to come at it. I am not that familiar with Communism as you have written about it. I do know that it is a reactionary concept and a rejection of Capitalism... but since both are similar to each other (price systems) at least as practiced... I was not thinking of adding any communist aspect in the criticism of money section. I know the Communist ideas glorified human labor... and that in a way it is a spin off of Adam Smith in that way, at least as practiced. The main argument against 18th and 19th century economics as near as I can tell... is that purchasing power is destroyed by Technology and particularly energy conversion. Jobs are eliminated by mechanization. It is true that a human can put out about 1/20th of a horse power or about 33 watts... and a machine, even a simple machine like a refrigerator uses about a quarter horse power... and works 24 hours a day.. without complaint, hence productivity is measured in machine and not human power any more. - That article http://www.technocracy.org/Archives/The%20Energy%20Certificate-r.htm The Energy Certificateon Energy Accounting by Fezer also seems to take money to task in a very overt way.
Interesting aside as far as science fiction... the creator of Star Trek.. G.R. was in telephone contact with the head quarters of Technocracy Incorporated on a regular basis and was friends with one of the office managers there in the 60's. I think his name was Berge, now deceased. That is a story I heard by someone in that organization. skip sievert ( talk) 00:52, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
References
I found some interesting information that I would like to integrate Arthur. This page has a lot of associated information that expands further what I was describing... to a degree that I was unaware of till now. http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics - Encyclopedia of Earth -- Is this site an appropriate site to use as a reference source... citation source ? And if so.... I was thinking of naming some scientific names... and basic concepts .. expanding on the thermodynamic mention I did and making perhaps a paragraph of material from this huge reference. Your opinion? I am for sure going to use some of this information for some other related wikipedia sites dealing more with Technocratic ideas. skip sievert ( talk) 15:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, this link expands information. Another admin. ed. said it looks allright to use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Wafulz#citation_reference_link skip sievert ( talk) 18:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Payment in energy merely makes energy money. Energy is practically infinitely divisible (you ain't buying anything with a quanta), energy can be stored, physicists know it can be a unit of account, and it could be generally accepted. While it wouldn't have the same characteristics as fiat money, it's still money. Relaxing the "generally accepted" condition just makes it barter. Energy also has the unfavorable restriction that there is not necessarily free disposal, which causes problems on the electrical grid sometimes. Note that barter isn't the only alternative to money - most communities (such as households) resolve debts in terms of social obligations (eg "I'll wash the dishes for you if you take the kids to practice for me if I need you to"). Technically, this relaxes the "unit of account" measure and the "store of value" as without account, you cant tell if the value is stored. This system of social obligations dominated feudal societies, and really only broke down when specialization of labor required us to transact with more people than we could maintain social obligations with. In non-market economies, such as the Soviet Union, obligation systems (eg blat (Russia)) arose when money and markets couldn't operate effectively. If pressed, I could probably source the papers or books from undergrad economics for the empirics, but the logic should be clear to anyone. Another system, which violates many of the principles of economics (namely sub-game perfect equilibria) is what I'd call the "token and respect trading." If you've ever been to another country, you've probably had a situation where you're meeting some stranger, and you trade tokens more for souvenir or sentimental value, despite their market value being grossly disproportional. Don't know if I can source that theory though... Bagsc ( talk) 13:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
Most of the links above are irrelevant. Again, "Technocracy" is not notable as a school of economic thought, mainstream or otherwise. An editor who believes otherwise needs to cite several reliable sources explicitly stating otherwise and, in the context of this article, demonstrate Technocracy's criticisms of money using reliable sources. There is nothing above clarifying why the criticism from Hubbert is of money per se and not GNP, and even if Hubbert had criticized money that would still not be notable unless many others had remarked on that criticism in reliable sources.
On this basis, I have deleted the criticism and alternatives sections. Sked123 ( talk) 17:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
Would this be an interesting addition toward the end of the article? The future of Money? What about this link and some of this information... and related links off this link? http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/06/17/singularity-economics-and-the-future-of-money/ Singularity economics and the future of money. skip sievert ( talk) 13:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
`
The false claim that "Money is not just a scarce good, or a good used in transactions, or a weight metric. One of Money's essential properties is that it has a mark of the authority that coins it." needs to be sourced. It's clearly untrue. A fixed weight of a precious metal need only have an assay mark to constitute "commodity money".
I'm not tagging only that statement, because he's added a number of other unsourced statements, and I'm heading away from my computer for most of the day, shortly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
I did a redo of the history section. I think it may be more comprehensible now possibly. I still have to make some footnotes and or citation links. Here it is so far. The Emergence of money
The use of barter like methods may date back to at least 100,000 years ago. To organize production and to distribute goods and services among their populations, pre-market economies relied on tradition, top-down command, or community cooperation. Relations of reciprocity and/or redistribution substituted for market exchange.
Trading in red ochre is attested in Swaziland. Shell jewellery in the form of strung beads also dates back to this period and had the basic attributes needed of commodity money.
The Shekel referred to an ancient unit of weight and currency. The first usage of the term came from Mesopotamia circa 3000 BC. and referred to a specific mass of barley which related other values in a metric. A barley/shekel was originally both a unit of currency and a unit of weight... just as the British Pound was originally a unit denominating a one pound mass of silver.
According to Herodotus, and most modern scholars, the Lydians were the first people to introduce the use of gold and silver Coin. It is thought that these first stamped coins were minted around 650-600 BC. A stater coin was made in the stater (trite) denomination. To complement the stater, fractions were made: the trite (third), the hekte (sixth), and so forth in lower denominations.
The name of Croesus of Lydia became synonymous with wealth in antiquity. Sardis was renowned as a beautiful city. Around 550 BC, Croesus contributed money for the construction of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
The first banknotes were used in China in the 7th century, and the first in Europe was issued by Stockholms Banco in 1661.
Thoughts and ideas for the next phase? skip sievert ( talk) 15:41, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Note that the three characteristics given are all functional. They don't preclude gains of barley or cigarettes being used for money. S B H arris 23:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Wow. You are a patient person Sbharris and your information is correct. Good job of explaining some basic aspects of money to Proto-money. I would suggest that Sbharris is not only the rhetorical victor here as to this interpretation of what money actually is... but the literal scholarly victor ... objective victor .. and literal factual presenting victor. What he is saying is objective... accurate.. conforms with neutral thinking also on this subject. Proto-money... you may want to suspend your judgment and read this file. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfx7rfr2_211crx6c26k Money-History&Energy Accounting-TNAT The North American Technate. ... not as a reference for the article in particular and I am not suggesting including material from it ... but just as a general reference to the way money works... where it came from.. etc. Excerpt: The masses in Mesopotamia, however, seldom dealt in such money (silver). It was simply too precious. To pay their bills, water carriers, estate workers, fishers, and farmers relied on more modest forms of money. Copper, tin, lead, and above all, barley. It was the cheap commodity money. Barley functioned in ancient Mesopotamia like small change in later systems, like the bronze currencies in the Hellenistic period.
Also the area that explains Sumeria and barley and how barley was used in conjunction to weight on scales relative to silver... and other precious things like bronze lead etc in the first civil society.
It looks to me like my edit should be restored... made before the last one in the history section. This current edit below in the History of Money section by proto-money :
It is unhistorical to consider an object used in transactions as money, without this object to have the mark of the person, of the society or of the authority which coined it. Money is not, and has never been, "anonymous". We always knew which authority (or who) was behind it.There was always someone who controlled the circulation and the number of money objects, there was always someone who was using it in order to receive taxes from it. Any object without the above properties cannot be considered as money.
I am afraid this borders on nonsense or gibberish... and should be removed immediately. skip sievert ( talk) 02:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Have a look at this a very interesting article [3] by Reid Goldsborough. As you can see other people also disagree the way we are.
According your definition, women are also money!!! :-) Protomoney ( talk) 09:03, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Obsidian, a type of volcanic glass or hardened lava, is one of many materials that were used as money before coins and afterward. (Photo courtesy of Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.)
No one here is denying where coined money came from (Lydia) and that it was stamped a certain way. I mention that in my history of money section in the money article.
I sincerely hope that an admin editor comes here and reverses your edit proto-money. Right now it does not conform to objective ... factual... neutral... information. skip sievert ( talk) 13:15, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Can you make sense of this?
It is unhistorical to consider an object used in transactions as money, without this object to have the mark of the person, of the society or of the authority which coined it. Money is not, and has never been, "anonymous". We always knew which authority (or who) was behind it.There was always someone who controlled the circulation and the number of money objects, there was always someone who was using it in order to receive taxes from it. Any object without the above properties cannot be considered as money. current edit.
Arthur could you make the Rfd? Or, as I am making a case, just revert the edit, or ask another admin ed. to do it that is not involved, but could just read through the contention... for reasons mentioned... currently, because the present edit is gibberish or nonsense? skip sievert ( talk) 14:41, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry but the section as written does not make sense. Now either. Croesus never conquered Lydia as it is written now. He was the king there. As far as experts agreeing with your opinion.. I do not think so. Also I am not going by my opinion... I am going by the facts. This should not be about your opinion either. So no, that is not O.K.
As to your opinion here about as to whether money can consist of material with intrinsic value without a certifying authority, or whether it requires a "trusted" certifying authority the very question does not really make sense and I would call the question a non issue.. a non starter... and possibly gibberish... and no it should not be in an article, which is trying to explain actual ideas as to the subject of the history of money.
Too sum it up, I do think that what you have written should not be in the edit... and that for starters, the edit that I made.. in full, without the additions you have made, should be restored so that then I can add some citations and footnotes etc. Right now the edit there is not accurate... does not make sense... and is contradictory to any history of money I have ever seen. skip sievert ( talk) 18:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
Redone,... with a couple of pictures... and lots of reference citations for the new material. Here is an example of a citation link that I made that now gets the ideas across (I hope) for the Lion Stater from Lydia being the first ... what is considered... marked with a picture or writing coin. Here is the link http://rg.ancients.info/lion/article.html Goldsborough, Reid. "World's First Coin". I also added a few other citation refs. skip sievert ( talk) 22:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC))
As near as I can tell Protomoney you have pretty much destroyed all the good work that has been done on this article. You have a strange sense of history . It is not neutral. It is like you are not even in the right topic here. Nothing you are doing makes particular sense. The information about One of the first Greek coins were the"Swastika" [8] ,,,,, look sorta of crazy or gibberish or nonsense like. skip sievert ( talk) 22:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
You have taken off the interesting pictures that were here previously. It looks pretty non sense like and really bad now. You have completely gone against the previous consensus when you were pretty much told by a number of people not to do what you are doing because it was not factual or accurate or neutral or etc. etc. etc.. The article looks and feels like hell now. I hope someone reverts it back to my last edit when by all agreement here, the main people working on this agreed that it looked good and contained good information. Protomoney.... why are you doing this? You ruined the article. skip sievert ( talk) 22:51, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
(←–)
No... it is not questionable. Money is any thing you want it to be that has perceived value. That included barley or silver or shells. Your work on this article is nonsense based or opinion based and has nothing to do with history ... neutrality or well rounded opinion even. You have completely gone against the others that formed a consensus that your edits are not just unhelpful they are inaccurate... misleading.. and not really even connected. skip sievert ( talk) 02:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
This is an example of something that does not make sense. A Protomoney (the editor)... edit.
When money was invented in Greeκ area, silver was used to create coins. Silver was at that time a rather useless metal used only in jewels, but it was scarce and difficult to counterfeit. Αlthough now days silver is considered as a commodity, it was not a commodity at the time. Silver coins represented the old commodity money of iron sticks, a useful metal used in war (see Heraion of Argos). The mark of the king or of the Democracy was used as assurance that these useless silver tokens were iron's replacements[1]. In that sense, money was a representative and not a commodity thing from the beginning. end quote... ok.... ugh... thats it.
Could someone revert the whole article back to where he was not editing 24 hours ago or a couple days ago now I guess. And please Protomoney, since it is evident that you do not write English so well ... but even more an issue.. you do not understand much of the historical aspects of this subject... plus, you are completely at odds with what is given information about basic aspects of ideas connected with money... would you cease and desist your current paste in contributions that make no sense. skip sievert ( talk) 21:06, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
It looks like this is about the point where the article lost it, and it was a while back... http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Money&diff=prev&oldid=230114054 Money - ... So went back to that consensus point as discussed with another involved editor. skip sievert ( talk) 03:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
I will source these better although see the section above. To remove that information diminishes the article. It is notable. It is a major branch of thinking as to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-market_economics Non-market economics and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_scarcity Post scarcity concepts. Just because it does not fit into Mainstream economics... apparently what you know most about... does not mean that this is not important information... which gives the article a little more depth. Read this please. http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm ECONOMY AND THERMODYNAMICS and this... http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics and please allow some more references to be put in ... although that section is well referenced now. The person that removed the information may not be familiar with these now mainstream ideas... Energy Accounting invented by Technocracy Incorporated but that does not mean they are not notable and significant.
Added this link now into to this area discussed http://ecen.com/eee9/ecoterme.htm ECONOMY AND THERMODYNAMICS. This is an excerpt..
For that we should reach a consensus about value, by weighting advisedly all the variables. Some idea like that certainly has occurred as soon the Law of Conservation of Energy was established in 1870. I cannot perform a thorough search, but I would suggest a starting point in the writings of Stuart Mill, Spencer and Balfour Stewart.
Explicitly, a similar idea occurred to Frederick Soddy in 1922. He wrote that the price of a merchandise reflect, directly or not, the energy invested in its production. (Today, he would say available energy). The same idea was proposed by Howard Scott during the Great Depression of the 30's. And now it surfaces with the ecological movement since the 60's, while emphasizing the erroneous use of planet's resources. An indirect consequence of this idea is the analysis of industrial processes by net energy use, taking into account all the energy involved since the extraction of natural resources and the "primary" energy. This approach is gaining adepts.
I added the wiki links. Repeating over and over that something is not notable and then deleting valuable and interesting information does not further knowledge of the topic in discussion. Money. There is now a ref. citation (In both sections) that mentions in detail the most notable of the groups that were related to the introduction of the concepts of Energy Accounting and more wiki article information links also.
Sked... you apparently have not read any of the info provided... here is another excerpt from one of the reference citations. http://www.eoearth.org/article/Biophysical_economics Biophysical economics - Encyclopedia of Earth
The use of energy as a unifying concept for social, political and economic analysis reached a zenith with the technocratic movement in the USA and Canada during the 1930s. Led by the flamboyant and energetic Howard Scott, the Technocracy movement began in 1918 as a group called the Technical Alliance. The Alliance conducted an industrial survey of North America in which economic parameters were measured in energy units rather than dollars. Although the Alliance lasted only a few years, the Depression provided fertile ground for the re-emergence of the technocratic movement which used depressed economic conditions as a rallying point for their call for a complete overhaul of existing economic and political institutions. In 1921, Howard Scott and others formed Technocracy, Inc., and in conjunction with the Industrial Engineering Department at Columbia University, began an empirical analysis of production and employment in North America in energy units. The association with a prestigious university like Columbia combined with Scott’s flamboyant relationship with the press made Technocracy internationally famous. skip sievert ( talk) 18:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I see you just reverted the information after even more sourcing was put in. You called it fringe material. I would say that because you are unfamiliar or do not understand this material that does not make it fringe material. You may be a classically trained economist... but that does not mean that only mainstream economics has a right to be presented to the public. You have diminished the information in the article. I reverted you. You have not apparently read any of the information provided. Please take a look at this article also before calling this fringe Technocracy (bureaucratic)... skip sievert ( talk) 18:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)