There is an aphorism that states “it’s not getting the right answer but asking the right question” that is crucial.
Readers of this site are surely aware of blurbs like ‘real money’, ‘honest money’, ‘Fiat’ money, printed money, borrowed money… ad infinitum.
What question were Aristotle’s qualities the answer to? The question ‘what makes good vs not so good money’. This question is fundamentally different from ‘what is money’. If we ask what money is better/not so good, we assume that we already know what money is, and what money is not… a big assumption.
During recorded history, many things played the role of ‘money’ (mainly store of value and medium of exchange); cattle (pecus… Roman origin of pecuniary) salt (origin of salary) cowry shells, cacao beans, even cigarettes in POW camps during WWII… and of course Gold and Silver through the ages.
But before thinking about what is better money, we need to decide what is money… bad or good… and what is not money. One way to understand this dichotomy is to study history; the history of money… and the history of real vs. fake money.
Notice that cattle, salt, cowry shells, cacao beans, cigarettes, monetary metals etc. are all some kind of ‘stuff’… that is they are real items. Not a single ‘promise’ or ‘IOU’ in the bunch. On the other hand, paper ‘money’ (bank notes) is nothing but a promise… of something.
To make this clear, let’s simplify; consider a pound of sugar as the ‘stuff’… and an ‘IOU a pound of sugar’ as the promise. I borrow a pound of sugar from you, and give you an IOU for ‘one pound of sugar’; then the difference becomes obvious; the ‘stuff’ (pound of sugar)… and the promise… the paper IOU.
So what, you say? Well, you can certainly use the sugar to sweeten your coffee… but not so much the (paper) IOU. If you hold the pound of sugar, great; you have ownership, and can put it to use; but the IOU, no way. Only if you redeem the IOU will you hold any real value.
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