Ok what is value I seen a cartoon back in the day a bout a bottle cap in the cartoon it was so precious to the tribe that who ever had it was the rich guy. Now that I am older I look at gold silver and the dollar bill like the bottle cap in the cartoon the dumped a lot more bottle caps into the tribe so everyone had some. With the that said he'll gold and silver is everywhere what makes it valuable really everyone got some it's a metal that's been push up buy the earth.
In the final analysis value is a matter of consensus. Something is valuable because people agree that it's valuable. That's all it takes. Could be gold, or silver, or diamonds, or large discs of stone. Or small rectangles of green toilet paper. Or electrons. As in BitCoins. Some things don't even have to exist to be valuable. Also as in BitCoins, which are really assigned quantities of value recorded in a electronic ledger. Money, in whatever form, is just neatly packaged value. Which is easier to compare, compute, and control than pure barter. Cocoa beans were the actual currency used by the Aztec. Gold was just a pretty metal sacred to the Sun God. Cortez thought to pillage the vast treasures in the palace of Moctezuma, and all he found there was, basically, a lot of dry brown beans.
Very good analogy, If you look at Survival Monkey .com the owners here pay for space on a media disk no wider then a typical DVD, which has a shelf life and will expire. Yet each month ( or year ) space and access to said space is charged and paid. Back in about 1997 I bought a domain name , a name in an invisible space on the word wide web. I paid allot in fact compared to today. But premium names today go for a hefty price, names that actually mean nothing until used and again paid for all as electrical components of a server/computer. And then some here pay for said membership to help said website here stay afloat an dhelp pay for bits and bytes on a disk. I sold a old gas motor I paid 10.00 for at a garage sale for 675.00 on Ebay. To me it was an old motor to the guy buying it it was worth more then gold at that time ( when Ebay was very new ). loved that analogy @UncleMorgan so true. I recall seeing a Tv or movie where travelers went to a place that had gold like we have rocks they could care less, but to travelers it was amazing.
Value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. the medium of exchange may vary but value is an individual determination. I once had a client who was a dealer in Star Trek memorabilia. His warehouse was packed with items that, to me, had inconsequential value but to him, it represented several hundred thousand dollars a year of income.
They don't call them precious metals because they are everywhere and easily obtainable. Gold just doesn't form on planets, it is brought there through a rare course of action in the cosmos --the supernovae of a star. Over the course of the formation of this fantastic biosphere, the Earth was bombarded with meteorites which contained gold and other precious metals. Just one ounce of gold can be pounded out into a very thin layer more than 300 square feet, and this is possible because it is highly malleable and very dense. In fact, there are many unique properties for gold, and some which have not yet been fully discovered. Most of the gold on this planet is unobtainable, existing near the planet's core, or in/beneath the oceans. When it comes to intrinsic value, one must consider the availability of the object. If everybody could easily make it, how could it then be considered valuable? When we think about bartering, each vendor and buyer must consider the values of what is being bartered, and whether or not a common medium for exchange can even be agreed upon. The English once used the "tally stick" method as currency, and that was only a carved wooden stick --and it was very successful.
That cartoon was duck tails. I miss that show. But your right. Money is only there because some one tells us it's worth somthing. They only tell us it's worth somthing so we use it and they tax it. They can't tax barter. I'm trying to go all cash looking for cash jobs on my off days I don't have a debit card any more. I don't have room to grow food in my yard I'm trying tomatoes in a straw bail again but I don't think it's working out oak trees are taking all the sunlight
Just a side comment in reference to growing tomatoes. If you only have room for a hay bale, consider this system. The instructions look complex because they are very precise. Once you understand them the whole thing is stone easy. https://www.tomatofest.com/pdfs/EarthTainer-Construction-Guide.pdf (And now, back to your regularly-scheduled thread.)
Value has taken many forms... From Beads to Bounty: How Wampum Became America’s First Currency—And Lost Its Power
It may become an important skill knowing how to barter and have some one designated to settle disputes over bartering agreements. This is where some form of money settles most disputes . Bartering requires a great deal of specific detail, that if abused can directly hurt others in sham deals, or bait and switch. With out some form of law and enforcement there will be abusers working an angle. The community plan I have in mind includes a form of money starting with a ration. A days work is worth one ration. ration size (quantity of food) is established by the community. One not working receives no ration and is dependent on the generosity of those that do work .period, no exceptions. This means, if you want my acceptance, you play by my rules . Children are dependent on their parents generosity till they are working .this need to be universally understood. Old folks that are unable to work are dependent on the generosity of others. If some one is being a jerk or liability no one is obligated to support them. Those that support a jerk can be identified as teaming with them. the group can vote to have them removed. An outsider that want's in is put in quarantine and observation by those in surveillance . Their status is that of a child ,dependent on the generosity of others, since they cannot be trusted for work till their character is approved .and at that, eventual work is limited and closely monitored till the group agree on approval. No representation in voting , every approved working person must vote . no exceptions. Those of similar skills that wish to be competitive , can ask what they want for their work . Schooling is paid for by those that choose to invest in it. Again using the ration as a form of exchange it can be divided down for lesser purchases , so paying for school may only cost a fraction of ration , the teacher handling several students can do very well provided that teacher is doing good job . it's a free market. Some one teaching a trade to their family can have a family business that is handed down and trade secrets can be maintained , Like blacksmithing for instance. One black smith might have the tools a skills for building farming equipment another might be better at making delicate things like surgical insterments . In any case the exchange through a medium of a valued commodity is universally respected . As a grow the commodity is food and the more food the more solid the value of the ration. Every one contributes to the value of the ration, and by neglect can devalue the ration as well. In time the value can be morphed into something better/more appropriate .
what if i can do 3x the amount of work you do in the same period? That is where this breaks down for me.
