The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-12-13

supposing that men get paid for their
wheat in actual gold dollars. is there
one man out of ten thousand who
knows whether these dollars contain
80 % grains of gold or not? Is there
one man out of a million who cares q
continental how much gold they con-
tain, or whether they contain any gold
or not SO long as they perform for him
their legitimate function of dollars?
The fact is, the commodity value OF
the money material is of not the slight
est Importance to its usefulness as
money. The only idea which money
presents to the mind of the user is the
abstract idea of dollar, (dime),
(cent); he knows perfectly well what
these abstract units are worth, in
commodities, but what the material
which carries these units may be
worth is matter of perfect indiffer-
ence to him because it is of no con Sc
quence whatev r. He does not know
because he does not need to know; the
money units perform for him their func-
ton of equating, fguratively, his values
to the values of all other commodities
within the sphere of circula ton, and
that is all he requires of them, and,
moreover, it is all they possibly can do
as money. If such demonstration as
this is not sufficient, let those who are
afflicted with the commodity lunacy
try and see what Roadway they can
make in expressing the value of COM
modify in terms of itself. Let them
try and discover the value of quantity
of wheat by comparing it with wheat
and see what result will be attained.
Such comparison will tell them abso-
lutely nothing; they will find that it is
an utter impossibility to find out any
thing about the value of a commodity
by comparing it with itself. And yet
this utter impossibility, if we are to
believe our wise fnanciers, is per-
formed every day in the year with re-
spect to the commodity, money. For,
gold is money and money is gold and
when we want to express the value of
dollar we say it is worth 1929 grains of
gold and when we want to express the
value Of %. 90 grains of gold we say it
is worth dollar, thus performing an
impossible feat by expressing the value
OF commodity in terms Of itself.
There does not seem to be any incon-
gruity about this expression; it seems
perfectly natural yet if money is a
commodity, the expression is plentiful
with saying that bushel of wheat is
worth bushel Of wheat, and the per-
son who should attempt to express the
value of wheat in that way would be
looked upon as fit candidate for lu-
matte asylum. We are here forced
upon the horns of Dilemma.
We must either admit that
with respect to this money commodity,
we are all the time performing admit
ted impossibilities, or we must accept
the more rational conclusion that
money is not commodity. We have
used commodity for the purpose of
giving the money units a tangible bod
lily expression, and that'fact has given
rise to the commodity fallacy concern
ing money.
The ideally perfect money is a full
legal tender governmental paper,
wholly disconnected from any metallic
bas S whatever. Such money would
perform it's legitimate money functions
without being influenced by the selfish
considerations of private parties. 1t is
easy to condemn fat money, but it is
not so easy to justify such condemna-
ton by any other consideration than
that Of ignorance Of the money func-
ton. The advocates Of the gold dollar
will have hard task to show that it
possesses one cents worth of money
value which is not fat value pure and
simple. Remove all taxation from la
Dor products and absorb by taxation
the value Of all natural utilities, those
whose magnitude of value naturally
increases, and issue to the people full
legal tender fiat money for the purpose
of conducting their exchanges. and we
shall get about as near Justice as it is
possible to get on this mundane sphere.
Although the volume of fat money,
in it's variations, could only affect abso-
lutte values, leaving relative values I'M
affected, and, therefore, it would be inn
possible to bring about spoliation
through insufficient volume, the stabil
ity of prices, for the protection of long
time contracts would render it neces-
sary that the volume of money should
remain in as nearly uniform relation
with the volume Of commodities as
possible. This desideratum might be
secured by the people, in annual
elections, deciding on a certain fixed
relation between the volume of money
and the annual increase in values for
each year, as decided from the tax rolls
of the nation. The general altera tons
in prices would furnish an intelligent
guide to follow in such cases.
ARE WE EDWARDS?