Perhaps a little less supercilious condescension is needed in your posts, Pericles.

The issues between us started from Arjay’s question:
>>JKJ,why cannot you as an individual,go to your garage and create money from nothing just like a few elite banksters?

I then pondered the dubious negotiability of my fiat, and asked what makes the fiat of government any less dubious:
“… what make the "genuine article" of "money", whose value comes from the authority of the stamp thereon, any more genuine, than the readiness and ability of the Commonwealth's monopoly forces, to do just that [i.e. enforce a monopoly that allows them to issue paper money which they criminalise for anyone else]?

The point of departure for our current debate was your reply:
“The value of money does not come, as you suggest, "from the authority of the stamp thereon", but from the willingness of the people to use it.” And “The "Commonwealth's monopoly forces" have very little to do with it …

I took issue with that because I think it’s partly true – the value comes from the willingness of the people to use it - and partly untrue.

I can use 10 x 100-dollar bills to buy a valuable TV. But the same physical media, without the stamp, are worthless, aren’t they? So clearly it’s nonsense to say that the value of fiat paper money “does not come from the authority of the stamp thereon”, and that the government’s fiat has “very little do with it”.

And clearly the people’s first preferences for money (not *money substitutes*) have been forcibly overridden by the legal tender laws, otherwise there’d be no need or purpose for such laws to restrict their freedom of choice of money, would there?

You went off on a tangent of irrelevance to the effect that money substitutes might be just as acceptable as money, thus confusing money with other means of exchange, including money substitutes.

Of course if there were really no significant difference between money and
a) other means of exchange, and
b) money substitutes,
then there’d be no need and no purpose for legal tender laws, would there?

“What you haven't explained is the method by which they [the government] achieve this [forcing inflation into the economy].

They do it in a number of ways involving both money and money substitutes, but I can’t explain them while you remain confused as to the basic distinction between money and not-money. The unclarity is all your own.

So I ask you again … is there a significant difference between money per se and other means of exchange including money substitutes, or not?

You leave more questions than answers, Jardine K. Jardine.

We need a common understanding of your notion of "money", which seems difficult to pin down. Take this sentence, for example:

>>And clearly the people’s first preferences for money (not *money substitutes*) have been forcibly overridden by the legal tender laws, otherwise there’d be no need or purpose for such laws to restrict their freedom of choice of money, would there?<<

What is the difference between the money that is "the people’s first preference", and the money that you judge is forcibly imposed upon them by the legal tender laws. You have excluded "money substitutes", which would presumably include the Jardinian Dollar, so I am at a loss to imagine what else is left.

Either you use the money that the government has described - for your benefit - as the genuine article. Or you use something else, that is (apparently) not a money substitute. My question is, what is that "something else"?

Then we might revisit this:

>>I can use 10 x 100-dollar bills to buy a valuable TV. But the same physical media, without the stamp, are worthless, aren’t they? So clearly it’s nonsense to say that the value of fiat paper money “does not come from the authority of the stamp thereon”, and that the government’s fiat has “very little do with it”.<<

The "same physical media", as you describe it can only be a) a forgery that tries to pass itself off as the real thing (i.e., the one with the stamp), or b) what you describe as a money substitute, a promissory note for example.

In the case of a) you are clearly trying to defraud the retailer, and the position of the government stamp in the transaction is simply to allow the retailer to tell the difference between a genuine note and a forgery.

In b), the retailer is completely free to accept or reject your offer to pay with a money substitute, in which case the "government stamp" does not come into the equation.

And I'm not at all sure about the "of course" here, Jardine K Jardine.

>>Of course if there were really no significant difference between money and
a) other means of exchange, and
b)money substitutes,
then there’d be no need and no purpose for legal tender laws, would there? <<

Well actually, there is. The purpose of legal tender laws is to enable you and I to recognize the difference between a genuine twenty dollar bill, and a forgery. The Currency Act describes what is legal tender in Australia, and the definition of legal tender is simply "the legally valid currency that may be offered in payment of a debt and that a creditor must accept"

Note the two verbs there: legal tender *may* be offered in payment, and if it is, the creditor must accept it That is to say, the creditor cannot rush off to a court of law and sue you for non-payment, if you have offered legal tender. He does, however, retain the option to accept, or reject, any other instrument, since you are not obliged to offer legal tender as payment: you have the option to do so, but you are not obliged to do so.

>>So I ask you again … is there a significant difference between money per se and other means of exchange including money substitutes, or not?<<

Yes, there is. Money that meets the definition of legal tender in the Currency Act cannot be rejected as payment of a debt. All other instruments may be either accepted, or rejected.

Pericles

I’m asking about the conceptual category of money itself, of which fiat money and legal tender are sub-categories, whereas you’re talking about money defined as legal tender.

So in a discussion whether government monopoly control of the supply of money confers a general benefit on society, or rather benefits State agents at the expense of society in general, your theory has no explaining power because you have no concept of money other than as whatever the State says it is!

Your process of reasoning is indeed
A: “The State’s monopoly of the supply of money is presumptively beneficial to society”
B: “How do you know?”
A: “Because there’s no other monetary alternative, by definition”.

However money existed before legal tender, didn’t it? Yes. By several thousands of years? Yes.

And we know of other different species of money from history – shells, and wampum, and tobacco, and gold, and holey dollars, and so on – I mean not as commodities, but as *money*.

And legal tender laws make one particular favoured species of money legal tender – therefore they must make all other possible species of money not-legal tender, mustn’t they? Yes. And therefore those other species exist as a conceptual category? Yes. And the whole point of legal tender laws is to stop those other possible species of money from existing in fact, isn’t it? Yes.

Therefore legal tender money is a species of the genus money, and your limiting the definition of money to legal tender only, is factually and conceptually false.

For example in the early days of the settlement at Sydney, competing monies circulated in the market, both those of private and of State provenance, e.g. rum, holey dollars, dumps, Spanish royals, sovereigns.

(The famous thaler – silver coin, origin of the term dollar – was of private provenance. It was very popular for centuries precisely because of the notorious debasement of coinage by royal i.e. State providers of money.)

I don’t know if any money were legal tender at that stage - c. 1805(?) - I don’t think they were because rum was money. But let’s just assume for the sake of argument that there is no legal tender, in other words, a creditor is free to accept payment in a particular money if he wants, and not if doesn’t want.

Now in that situation, there are multiple circulating monies competing in the market, and as yet no question of legal tender or fiat money.

The evolution from commodity money to fiat legal tender paper money, follows the following conceptual course:
1. Commodity exchange – barter – oranges for armchairs.
2. People develop money because of the inconveniences of barter:
a. Difficulty finding someone making armchairs who wants your oranges – ‘double coincidence of wants’
b. Difficulty getting change of an armchair – “divisibility”
c. Difficulty storing oranges for retirement – “store of value”
d. Difficulty carrying oranges and armchairs – “portability”
Commodity money is the first to develop. A particular commodity is generally sought-after for its utility or beauty etc. So people seek it specifically to give away later in exchange for something else – i.e. as *money*. This, not legal tender, is the classic defining characteristic of money per se – i.e. the most generally acceptable medium of exchange which we get specifically to give away later in exchanges to get around the problems of barter.
The classic example of commodity money is gold, valued firstly for its commodity value e.g. jewellery, and because everyone wants it, later sought as a medium of exchange. Enter money.