Moneta-Teoria Modernoaz (MTMz): zipriztin batzuk

Iruzkinak (1)

• 

  joseba says:

  2023/01/16 at 11:30

  Randall Wray, Money Did Not Come From Barter

  Transkripzioa:

  0:00
  let me start off with the way that
  0:03
  everybody is introduced to money whether
  0:06
  you studied economics or not I’m sure
  0:08
  you got this story I can remember when
  0:11
  my daughter was in first grade and she
  0:13
  came to me and told me this story and I
  0:15
  said well actually that’s not quite
  0:17
  right that yes it is daddy that’s what
  0:20
  the teacher said so you get it from a
  0:22
  very young age
  0:24
  it begins with barter we’ve got Robinson
  0:27
  Crusoe
  0:28
  he’s shipwrecked he meets Friday
  0:32
  Crusoe knows how to grow grain Friday
  0:35
  knows how to fish so they barter but
  0:38
  this can be very inconvenient because it
  0:41
  requires that on the day that a Friday
  0:45
  wants to deliver a fish Crusoe actually
  0:50
  wants a fish and he’s willing to trade
  0:53
  grain for it so the story is that it
  0:56
  requires a double coincidence of wants
  0:58
  so it’s inconvenient
  1:00
  they search around for something to act
  1:05
  as a medium of exchange they might begin
  1:08
  with seashells but through some
  1:10
  evolutionary process they end up with
  1:13
  gold which has some nice characteristics
  1:15
  that make it a very good medium of
  1:17
  exchange it’s very valuable it doesn’t
  1:21
  rot and on and on and on so this greatly
  1:23
  reduces the transactions costs involved
  1:26
  in barter there is one problem with gold
  1:29
  it is extremely valuable you got to
  1:32
  worry about people who will try to take
  1:34
  away your gold stock so you start
  1:37
  storing it with the Goldsmith’s
  1:40
  the Goldsmith’s already had that problem
  1:42
  they had to protect the gold stock that
  1:44
  they’re using to make jewelry they have
  1:46
  safes and so on and so you would deposit
  1:48
  your gold with the gold stuff with the
  1:51
  Goldsmith the Goldsmith gives you a
  1:53
  receipt people discover that they
  1:56
  actually can use those receipts and
  1:58
  payments rather than using the gold
  2:00
  because individuals who accept them know
  2:03
  that they can go get the gold out of the
  2:05
  Goldsmith’s safe whenever they want the
  2:08
  Goldsmith in turn realizes that he
  2:10
  actually doesn’t have to keep the gold
  2:12
  in the same
  2:13
  he only needs to keep a little bit
  2:15
  because those receipts are not all going
  2:17
  to come back on the same day okay so he
  2:20
  discovers what we now call the deposit
  2:22
  expansion process you can issue lots of
  2:25
  receipts and hold just a little bit of
  2:26
  gold maybe 10% for safekeeping to redeem
  2:31
  on demand those Goldsmith’s become the
  2:34
  banks so that’s the story okay what is
  2:38
  money in this view I want to say
  2:40
  something about the nature of money and
  2:42
  I’m going to contrast it with the MMT
  2:45
  view money comes about to lubricate the
  2:49
  market it’s more efficient than barter
  2:53
  specific money denominated assets
  2:56
  fulfill that function medium of exchange
  2:59
  exactly which kinds of things fulfill
  3:03
  that function changes over time for a
  3:06
  very long time it was supposedly was
  3:08
  gold okay but gradually we have changed
  3:12
  those money things that fulfill that
  3:16
  function but still today the focus is on
  3:19
  money as a medium of exchange there are
  3:22
  other functions that money serves but
  3:25
  those derived from the medium of
  3:26
  exchange function so medium of exchange
  3:29
  is the most important function of money
  3:33
  okay what is wrong with this Orthodox
  3:36
  story I know that I am being very quick
  3:38
  explaining the dominant paradigm on
  3:42
  money and banking what’s wrong with it
  3:48
  first there’s actually no evidence of
  3:50
  barter based markets and I don’t know if
  3:53
  any of you have read David Graeber book
  3:57
  this was just a fantastic success and
  4:01
  unimaginable success debt the first
  4:06
  5,000 years everybody bought this book
  4:08
  okay it was a runaway bestseller
  4:11
  it’s like 5,000 pages long it’s the kind
  4:15
  of book everybody buys and probably
  4:17
  hardly anybody reads including me I’ve
  4:20
  got it on my shelf maybe when I retire
  4:22
  I’ll finally get the time to read it
  4:24
  okay but what David
  4:27
  shows is that as when we look around the
  4:31
  world as far back as we go you just do
  4:33
  not find any economies anywhere
  4:36
  based on barter they just do not exist
  4:40
  and what we actually find when we look
  4:43
  at history and I knew this long long
  4:45
  long before Graber is that money
  4:49
  actually pre-exists markets money was
  4:53
  not invented as a transactions cost
  4:56
  minimizing device for markets that
  4:58
  already existed money pre-exists markets
  5:02
  okay
  5:03
  money is as old as writing how do we
  5:08
  know that the very first written records
  5:10
  are all about money okay
  5:14
  basically writing was not invented by
  5:17
  poets it was invented by accountants to
  5:21
  keep track of money values so money
  5:26
  exists before markets so there’s
  5:27
  something wrong with that part of the
  5:28
  story and even the Austrians who pushed
  5:32
  for a very long time this barter story
  5:34
  they now admit that once you get beyond
  5:37
  about ten people and ten different
  5:39
  commodities it’s very hard for market
  5:42
  higgling and haggling to settle on a a
  5:46
  single commodity that will serve as
  5:48
  money if you’re talking about many
  5:50
  commodities and many people involved
  5:53
  unless you add modern computing power
  5:57
  you’re not going to select a single
  6:00
  commodity to serve as your money
  6:02
  commodity and finally from the very
  6:06
  beginning the evidence shows that
  6:08
  authorities were always involved in the
  6:10
  monetary system in creating the monies
  6:13
  of account I’ll come back to that
  6:15
  so authorities were always there it
  6:18
  wasn’t Robinson Crusoe and Friday that
  6:21
  invented money it came out of the
  6:23
  authorities another problem story is
  6:27
  modern money has no intrinsic value this
  6:29
  is a little bit hard to explain when
  6:31
  your whole story was about choosing a
  6:33
  commodity that was very valuable that
  6:35
  could serve as your money commodity okay
  6:39
  today’s monies
  6:40
  are not attached to any commodities they
  6:43
  have no intrinsic values and neither did
  6:46
  ancient money in spite of the goldsmith
  6:49
  story as far back as you go the money
  6:52
  things did not have intrinsic values
  6:55
  usually okay there’s an infinite regress
  6:59
  problem what people will do then as they
  7:01
  say well yes in the past it was gold
  7:03
  that gave money value but today it is
  7:05
  trust asking what is the trust and the
  7:09
  money they say well I trust that Billy
  7:13
  Bob will take it from me in payment I
  7:15
  trust I can go to the grocery store and
  7:18
  someone will take it okay in my view
  7:20
  that’s a very thin argument to base the
  7:26
  most important institution we have in
  7:28
  modern economies which is money on trust
  7:33
  and also there is no circular flow that
  7:38
  can explain where the money comes from
  7:39
  how does it get into the economy so I’m
  7:42
  going to present an alternative this is
  7:43
  sort of it so where did money come from
  7:51
  we do not know and we will not know
  7:54
  nobody sat down and wrote a memo today I
  7:59
  invented money in this house this is how
  8:01
  I did it we’re not gonna find that
  8:03
  because money pre-existed writing as I
  8:07
  said the first writing already is
  8:09
  talking about money so we’re not gonna
  8:12
  know we have to speculate the most
  8:15
  convincing speculating I’ve ever seen is
  8:17
  done by the most famous coin collector
  8:21
  in the world who’s I mean he beyond
  8:24
  collecting studied coins was a guy named
  8:28
  Philip Grierson at University of
  8:30
  Cambridge in England when he died he
  8:32
  donated all the coins which were worth a
  8:34
  fortune to the University of Cambridge
  8:36
  he speculated that actually money came
  8:40
  out of the ancient tribal practice
  8:43
  that’s called vert gild now that was
  8:46
  applied to the Germans Roman society was
  8:48
  civilized Germany was still a tribal
  8:50
  society the Romans studied the German
  8:53
  tribal society so we know a lot about
  8:55
  how it functioned but anthropologists
  8:58
  find that every tribal society they come
  9:00
  across also has this very geld tradition
  9:03
  if you cause an injury to someone else
  9:08
  okay here whoops
  9:10
  killed the guy a fine is imposed on you
  9:14
  and you have to pay a fine to the
  9:17
  victim’s family
  9:19
  okay these fines were in kind it would
  9:23
  depend on what the injury was that would
  9:26
  determine what you had to pay whether
  9:27
  it’s a goat or a cow or a horse or sheep
  9:30
  or chicken
  9:35
  Oh as far back as there was tribal
  9:38
  society and humans came out of tribal
  9:40
  society so it’s as old as humans okay
  9:43
  when did they come up with the idea and
  9:44
  why did they come up with it we don’t
  9:46
  know when but it’s obvious why they did
  9:48
  it to stop blood feuds otherwise you
  9:52
  have the Hatfields and the McCoys
  9:53
  killing each other so this is to stop
  9:56
  retribution you had to pay a fine so
  10:00
  Grierson’s
  10:01
  notion was that the concept of valuing
  10:06
  things came out of the very guild
  10:08
  tradition it was a huge jump because
  10:11
  very guild you pay a cow versus a
  10:14
  chicken depending on the damages you had
  10:17
  done money allows you to compare those
  10:20
  things Oh chick it takes a hundred
  10:24
  chickens value to equal one cow he
  10:29
  thinks that’s where money came from it’s
  10:30
  a big intellectual jump bigger than any
  10:33
  measuring jump we had ever done before
  10:35
  because the measurements before money
  10:37
  always were lengths what’s the link foot
  10:42
  whose foot the King’s foot okay or qubit
  10:47
  and so on those were those are
  10:49
  relatively easy now a hint is that every
  10:52
  ancient money unit was the name of a
  10:57
  great grain weight unit shekel lira
  11:01
  pound those are all weight units they
  11:04
  all came out of measuring grain so
  11:08
  someone had the idea let’s use the grain
  11:11
  measurement in order to measure the
  11:14
  value of everything by Babylonian times
  11:18
  this is exactly what they did and then
  11:20
  the price lists the equivalents to the
  11:23
  mina which was a grain weight unit was
  11:26
  posted at the temple that is how you
  11:30
  knew the value of everything it was set
  11:33
  by the temple’s authorities I’ll come
  11:36
  back to religion because it’s important
  11:38
  for money
  11:39
  okay alternative what is money
  11:43
  yeah I will it is a state monopoly it is
  11:50
  a social unit of measurement if you’re
  11:52
  in America you can point to anything you
  11:54
  can ask people what is that worth
  11:56
  they’re not gonna tell you in terms of
  11:58
  chickens they’re gonna tell you in terms
  12:00
  of dollars almost everything can be
  12:04
  valued in terms of dollars now not quite
  12:06
  everything but as capitalism develops a
  12:09
  greater and greater range of things are
  12:12
  measured in terms of money it is a state
  12:15
  money of account almost without
  12:16
  exception the money unit of account that
  12:19
  we use comes from the state every time a
  12:21
  new country is formed it chooses its own
  12:25
  money of account why did we get the
  12:27
  dollar in the u.s. because we didn’t
  12:29
  want the pound okay we just revolted
  12:34
  we chose the dollar and we modeled our
  12:36
  currency after the Spanish currency to
  12:40
  thumb our nose is it England and then we
  12:45
  have money records there’s a hierarchy
  12:46
  of these io u–‘s denominated in the
  12:50
  state money of account there is bank
  12:52
  money okay and there are your io u–‘s
  12:56
  they’re all denominated in the US dollar
  12:58
  in America the form that they take
  13:01
  depends on technology I’ll come back to
  13:03
  this paper money coin money electronic
  13:08
  money that is just the technological way
  13:11
  of recording the tally sticks the use of
  13:15
  the currency and value money are based
  13:16
  on the power of the issuing authority
  13:18
  not on the intrinsic value okay
  13:23
  the currency does not have to have any
  13:26
  intrinsic value it’s based on the power
  13:28
  of the issuing authority the the
  13:31
  currency itself R is a record of debts
  13:35
  whether it’s printed on paper or stamped
  13:38
  on a coin it’s a record of a debt it is
  13:41
  a promise to redeem and I’ll say more
  13:44
  about what Redemption means the state
  13:47
  played the central role in the evolution
  13:49
  of money from the very beginning it
  13:51
  always has played the central role what
  13:55
  we typically find
  13:57
  we look around the world today and we
  13:59
  look back as far back as we can go about
  14:03
  five to six thousand years into the past
  14:05
  what we find is the one state or one
  14:10
  nation one currency rule each nation or
  14:15
  state has its own currency when the
  14:17
  Soviet Union falls apart every one of
  14:19
  the former members chooses its own
  14:21
  currency okay in the past the exceptions
  14:26
  to this rule were extremely small and
  14:29
  virtually irrelevant the Vatican State
  14:32
  used the Italian lira okay that was an
  14:37
  exception minor
  14:38
  the only major exception to this rule is
  14:42
  euro land it was an experiment in an
  14:47
  exception and it’s been disastrous okay
  14:51
  before the euro this is what we find
  14:54
  it’s not a coincidence it’s tied up with
  14:56
  sovereign power political independence
  14:58
  and fiscal authority this is why every
  15:02
  new nation adopts own currency and
  15:05
  finally taxes drive money taxes are what
  15:10
  gives value it’s money it is the power
  15:12
  to impose taxes that is the important
  15:16
  sovereign power that insures the
  15:18
  currency has value
  15:27
  you