version

Well-known member
This was a decent read; didn't know Kublai Khan invented paper money.

The Invention of Money - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/05/the-invention-of-money

When the Venetian merchant Marco Polo got to China, in the latter part of the thirteenth century, he saw many wonders—gunpowder and coal and eyeglasses and porcelain. One of the things that astonished him most, however, was a new invention, implemented by Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great conqueror Genghis. It was paper money, introduced by Kublai in 1260. Polo could hardly believe his eyes when he saw what the Khan was doing:

He makes his money after this fashion. He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in fact of the mulberry tree, the leaves of which are the food of the silkworms, these trees being so numerous that whole districts are full of them. What they take is a certain fine white bast or skin which lies between the wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and this they make into something resembling sheets of paper, but black. When these sheets have been prepared they are cut up into pieces of different sizes. All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver; and on every piece a variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to write their names, and to put their seals. And when all is prepared duly, the chief officer deputed by the Khan smears the seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so that the form of the seal remains imprinted upon it in red; the money is then authentic. Anyone forging it would be punished with death.

That last point was deeply relevant. The problem with many new forms of money is that people are reluctant to adopt them. Genghis Khan’s grandson didn’t have that difficulty. He took measures to insure the authenticity of his currency, and if you didn’t use it—if you wouldn’t accept it in payment, or preferred to use gold or silver or copper or iron bars or pearls or salt or coins or any of the older forms of payment prevalent in China—he would have you killed. This solved the question of uptake.

Marco Polo was right to be amazed. The instruments of trade and finance are inventions, in the same way that creations of art and discoveries of science are inventions—products of the human imagination. Paper money, backed by the authority of the state, was an astonishing innovation, one that reshaped the world. That’s hard to remember: we grow used to the ways we pay our bills and are paid for our work, to the dance of numbers in our bank balances and credit-card statements. It’s only at moments when the system buckles that we start to wonder why these things are worth what they seem to be worth. The credit crunch in 2008 triggered a panic when people throughout the financial system wondered whether the numbers on balance sheets meant what they were supposed to mean. As a direct response to the crisis, in October, 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto, whoever he or she or they might be, published the white paper that outlined the idea of Bitcoin, a new form of money based on nothing but the power of cryptography.

The quest for new forms of money hasn’t gone away. In June of this year, Facebook unveiled Libra, global currency that draws on the architecture of Bitcoin. The idea is that the value of the new money is derived not from the imprimatur of any state but from a combination of mathematics, global connectedness, and the trust that resides in the world’s biggest social network. That’s the plan, anyway. How safe is it? How do we know what libras or bitcoins are worth, or whether they’re worth anything? Satoshi Nakamoto’s acolytes would immediately turn those questions around and ask, How do you know what the cash in your pocket is worth?

The present moment in financial invention therefore has some similarities with the period when money in the form we currently understand it—a paper currency backed by state guarantees—was first created. The hero of that origin story is the nation-state. In all good stories, the hero wants something but faces an obstacle. In the case of the nation-state, what it wants to do is wage war, and the obstacle it faces is how to pay for it.
 

Leo

Well-known member
we (I imagine) don't have the thirst for power, so money can still change our lives, for better or worse. money can't buy happiness, but a little bit can make life easier when you don't have to worry about how you're going to pay the rent or put food on the table.

I've also seen it ruin families. a parent or grandparent dies without a will, children clash over how to divide up the inheritance, property, belongings. three siblings inherited a house, two wanted to keep and rent it, the third (who was in need of money) waned to sell it. one child named power of attorney of an estate, resentment from the brothers and sisters, etc.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Yeah I remember first hearing about the "diminishing power of money" in the 90s and it made perfect sense... but it doesn't seem to hold, billionaires still seem prepared to kill or ruin loads of people for a few extra pence.

some billionaires have always been like that, tho. but isn't that even more a maniacal drive to win -- have more than the next guy -- than to actually enjoy the benefits of having more money? it's competitive greed, they could be hoarding anything.
 

version

Well-known member
I've heard it said more than once that it's millionaires who are the greediest as they have a lot but not enough that they couldn't lose it all in an instant; demigods to billionaire gods.
 
The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous is great on the history, golden age, fall and future of money.

Very interesting takes on deflationary hard money Vs inflationary fiat, stock to flow ratios and time preference. Ferociously anti-Keynesian. The character of money has a powerful influence on culture, war, architecture, states.

He'll probably pick up the Nobel prize for economics sometime in the next decade.
 
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version

Well-known member
I know this is one of my paranoid conspiracy bugbears but it does seem to me that the meaning of money changes when it's given out by the government. You can see this by looking at the way benefits work. They become survival tokens which can be witheld for 'bad' behaviour, for example drug use. It then becomes a control mechanism. I'm not necessarily against the idea of UBI and it seems reasonably likely something like it will become necessary if the promised automation revolution arrives. I'm just suggesting it probably won't be as peachy as it sounds. You'll have to 'earn it' in some other way.
.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
I know this is one of my paranoid conspiracy bugbears but it does seem to me that the meaning of money changes when it's given out by the government. You can see this by looking at the way benefits work. They become survival tokens which can be witheld for 'bad' behaviour, for example drug use. It then becomes a control mechanism. I'm not necessarily against the idea of UBI and it seems reasonably likely something like it will become necessary if the promised automation revolution arrives. I'm just suggesting it probably won't be as peachy as it sounds. You'll have to 'earn it' in some other way.

 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I'm not going to wang on much more about bitcoin, but this article explains a model for assessing the value of anything - money, silver, gold, Bitcoin, shitcoins.

hhttps://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/m...y-91fa0fc03e25
This is an interesting analysis but (by his own admission) it doesn't take account of other factors, eg if another cryptocurrency becomes more popular then it won't matter about the restocking levels of Bitcoin, or if all the exchanges get hacked or it gets made illegal for legitimate businesses to accept it or something.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The term "making money" is interesting. As far as I know its an American invention. In all of history, you'd only been able to only earn it, attain it, transport it from somewhere else into your possession. "Making money" is the American Dream, a non zero-sum arcadia economy, where everybody can flourish on account of themselves only and at the misfortune of none.

And yet the USA now has a president who is the embodiment of the opposite principle. Trump's worldview is strictly zero-sum: for him, a deal is only good if it's bad for someone else. For there to be winners there must also be losers.
 

vimothy

yurp
I found money really fascinating bc its so obscure but also so central, this strange occult object always in your blind spot
 

version

Well-known member
The paper dollar is a crucial text in the nationalist canon of US literature, and one that is probably read more than any other; its words and images make it a complex symbol of nationality that tries to convey what defines this nation. The conflation of economic and ideological value with regard to the dollar is most evident in Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code, which states that

Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

One may interpret this only in economic terms as the unlawful destruction of legal tender, but one may also relate this to section 700 on the desecration of the flag of the United States and consider both together in terms of national symbolism. The ideological inscription of money and the potential subversion of said ideology through that very same money combine in this instant, and the moral blankness of money makes it a contested space where ideologies may be affirmed and challenged depending on how the money is used.

https://orbit.openlibhums.org/article/id/420/
 

Leo

Well-known member
wasn't also a demonstration of strength, superiority that a conquering nation would do away with the currency of the country they invaded and institute their own? the ultimate domination and castration of a rival country, to neuter its monetary system and take away the symbol of its national independence.

kinda like the euro.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
wasn't also a demonstration of strength, superiority that a conquering nation would do away with the currency of the country they invaded and institute their own? the ultimate domination and castration of a rival country, to neuter its monetary system and take away the symbol of its national independence.
kinda like the euro.
Ha, well they never got the UK did they? Losers.
 

Leo

Well-known member
true, although people can continue to speak the previous language in private (or in public, if they want to be rebellious). they have no choice when it comes to the monetary system.
 

Leo

Well-known member
just curious, do any far-right nationalists groups in the EU make a fuss about wanting their old currency back? any push for the return of francs and deutsche marks?
 
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