Money; Whence it Came From and Where it Went (J.K. Galbraith)

Its been a while since I read Galbraith's book. I will probably only make a brief mention of it's content. I believe it was published about 1975 or so. It will lack the history of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama era of Wall Street financial perfidy.

http://www.amazon.com/Money-Whence-Came-Where-Went/dp/0395198437

The history of money is quite interesting. Did you know there was a real John Law who worked for Louis the 16th (I believe it was the 16th)? He made all these land deals to prop up the monarchy that eventually collapsed and he was figuratively tarred and feathered.

Galbraith, who was in charge of U.S. economics for Roosevelt during the second world war, was a student of John Maynard Keynes, yet of course Galbraith wasn't an idiotic supply-sider.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith#Money_:_Whence_It_Came.2C_Where_It_Went_.281975.29

Galbraith explains Gresham's law-bad money follows good. Early in U.S. history when anyone could mint their own currency, and there were hundreds, some obviously weren't good. Yet Gresham's law is about imitation of successful economic strategies that are debased.

Galbraith explained that all the gold ever found would fit in one large supertanker ship. Much of it has been melted down and recast numerous times, and not too much lost.

Money was originally just a trade good, and when civilization developed a standard trade good of value became obvious; if the king of Mycenae had a gold coin of a particular weight then it would be worth the same as that of the King of Troy. Egoism of the day had the rulers image put on a coin, and greedy rulers would debase their currency putting dross weight inside a gold wrapped shell (does America have any real copper in pennies any more?).

Currency of money as an abstract items became a reflection of the complexity of an economy and of trade more than the thing itself. Nixon took America off the Gold Standard, and so today we see phenomena like quantitative easing or 'minting' of 600 billions of dollars by the Fed up ahead.

Monetary theory as contemplated by Von Mises and Freedman, seeks to determine what real capital value is. Money in some way is supposed to be associated with real capital value, so it obviously becomes more difficult to determine what value is when it is not plain and simple like wheat in a silo and no complications other that immediate supply and demand.

When a variety of global networks own various items, and fuel from OPEC nations is essential for transport as well as production of commodities and manufactured items, the effort to set a given value is difficult to isolate.

I believe it is important for citizens to have a material currency to trade for themselves freely, without being controlled by financial networks directly. It is also something of a reality check objectively upon the honesty of the advantaged currency traders and manipulators.

Value theory is a social element, perhaps a democratically elected element that is achieved via social momentum and limited citizen input determining social values. It is a philosophical activity with many points of view, and ecological economics of low entropy, low pollution, stable population are minority opinions today in the globalist expansive sprawl of power, avarice and control thoughtlessly reducing the health of the planet and its potential carrying capacity for human life.

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post-script

Money hasn't much intrinsic value any longer. It is more about power and the desire to control properties that is the problem. A medium of social exchange is just one tool of economic activity.

Formerly and still, wars of conquest are fought to expropriate resources and social power.

Value theory may deem anything valuable. My books for instance, could become socially valued this Christmas, and I could sell millions. Then if a depression occurred, and no more could be printed existing copies could become more valuable than gold (invest now in several copies from www.lulu.com/garycgibson).

Seriously though, a theory of social conflict is not reasonably reducible to money. That may be a proximal cause of crime such as in 'Crime and Punishment', yet there are larger social structures and causes for crime besides money-even in Dostoyevsky's book.

An intermediate tool of social exchange reflecting value of what money is about. To ossify or institutionalize money in the hands of an elite would not eliminate the tool of social exchange,it would just eliminate economic activity in which individuals set their own values for which they would exchange money.

Electronic money already exists for the convenience of the advantaged. The poor haven't access to such things, and electronics aren't worth a damn in many circumstances of the outdoor life. Even rechargable batteries freeze at low temperature for instance.

Increasing rather than decreasing the mediums of social value would be a good way to go. Currency banks for Christians in a priesthood of believers for work, church attendance and participation in liturgy and readings from the Bible-that is a way to go.

There could be other social networks created to provide real social value for people-a sort oof turbo craigs list and exchange bank combine, that would allow a storing of work and exchange credits without money. Yet money is just a concept of an objective social exchange unit.

One wants and honest and impartial social exchange unit for work effort of course, yet people are disputacious and disagree about what is of value, and who should receive value units for various activities. A communitarian approach might create several alternative social value compilation structures so individuals would have more resources to draw upon in lean time.