Saturday, January 14, 2012

Regarding Intrinsic Value

Issac made a good point. On the other hand, perhaps I was wrong to say that gold or any other commodity has intrinsic value. Gary North established that point some months ago. The marketplace with its ever changing supply and demand relationships may say that it a certain weight or volume of a substance can be purchased for a certain amount of a given currency at a given point in time. One also could say that some things have historically been worth more than others when compared on a weight or volume basis. Perhaps only the air we breath and those political conditions within society that are proper to our nature - conditions we refer to as natural or individual rights -  can be said to have intrinsic value. But even there I am sure some will disagree. Let it suffice to say that units of gold and silver of a known weight and purity have worked well as a medium of exchange over time for reasons that most who read this blog are familiar with. They are not perfect, few things are, but have been found preferable to most other things as mediums of exchange.

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