Three Modern Functions (Plus One)
* Medium of Exchange
* Unit of Account
* Store of Value
* Established by Convention/Law
Account of Money
* Necessity of exchange
* Commutative Justice
* Equality in exchange
* How many shoes is a house?
* Money enters as a measure of diverse goods
* measure of human need or desire
* Measure must contain that which it measures
* Law - measures human behavior (definition of murder)
* time - measures motion (clock)
* Established by Convention
Aristotelian Causes
* Final Cause - Faciliate exchange (medium of exchange)
* Formal Cause - Measure of value (unit of account)
* Material Cause - Something valuable (store of value)
* Efficient Cause - Legislator or Community agreeement
Implications
* In order to be money, a thing must be valuable
* cigarettes are valuable before they become money
* USD is valuable as a tax coupon
* Bitcoin is not valuable and is a waste of time and energy
* acts as money only as a sort of similitude
* money as measure of human desire, but desire can be irrational
* see podcast on economic value
* Good Money - Final Cause
* needs to be stable
* needs to be apt to receive the form
* easily divisible and transferable
* Bank accounts
* securities in themselves, but are not USD
* Anything valuable in principle can be money
* Money is not a different sort of thing, but a way of using things
* All exchange is fundamentally barter
