Re: Danby seminar

[wfhummel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (William F. Hummel)]

These very interesting comments by Greg Nowell, and his
questioning whether commodity money has actually existed,
reminded me of a passage in Robert Guttmann's book, "How Credit
Money Shapes the Economy," pp 30, which follows:

"Money is not a good.  An economy that uses as money a commodity
(.e.g precious metals), which producers can produce for
themselves, cannot be distinguished from a barter economy.  If
money had ever been just another good, we would have barter and
not monetary exchange.  In reality, throughout modern
civilization we have never had commodity money.  Instead, we
always used tokens as money, mostly paper currency and bank
notes.  Even gold and silver coins, which we usually refer to as
commodity-money, were actually tokens and as such, strictly
speaking, were credit-money."

William F. Hummel