CHAPTER XXII

THE FUNCTIONS OF MONEY AND THE VALUE OF MONEY

In preceding chapters, I have spoken of the "money-service" as a source of additional value of money, under certain conditions. Before money can function as money at all, it must have value from some non-monetary source.[471] But, given this prior value, money performs valuable services. These valuable services, in certain cases, add to the value of money. Moreover, the fact that money, when made of a metal used in the arts, lessens the amount available for use in the arts, raises the marginal value of that metal there, and consequently raises its value in monetary form as well. It is now necessary to analyze the money-service, and to see in precisely what ways it does affect the value of money. And first, we must notice that the money-service is not simple, but compound; that in fact there are several services of money, in many ways distinct from one another; that not all money can perform all of these services; that most of them may be performed by things other than money, that these services are not all equally important as sources of the value of money, and that the same service varies, from time to time and from place to place, in its significance from this angle; and finally, that one of these services which is of the greatest social importance, namely, the "common measure of values" function, does not add to the value of money at all.

I shall not now undertake a history of theories of the functions of money. Many of the points which follow are common property of many writers.[472] The nature of some functions has been more clearly explained than that of others. I have not found in the literature of the subject any very clear statements, moreover, as to the relations of different functions to the value of money. I shall try in what follows, by a series of hypothetical cases, to isolate each function of money, as far as may be, and shall try, by varying my hypotheses, to indicate variations in the influence of the different functions on the value of money.

The functions of money have been variously described and named. The following list seems most satisfactory to me:

1. Common measure of values (standard of value).

2. Medium of exchange.

3. Legal tender for debts (_Zahlungs-_ or _Solutions-mittel_).

4. Standard of deferred payments.

5. Reserve for credit instruments, including reserve for government paper money.

6. Store of value.

7. Bearer of options.

The common measure of value function rests in the intellectual needs of man. It grows out of the necessity for calculation, for bookkeeping, for understanding what is going on. Any object of value may be used to measure the value of anything else, just as any object of weight--say an irregular mass of iron--may be put in the balance against some other object, and the relation between the absolute weights of the two objects thus more or less definitely ascertained.[473] But it helps little, in getting at the aggregate weight of a collection of objects, to know that A among them is heavier than B, while D is lighter than F. To get a knowledge of the situation adequate for quantitative manipulation, it is best to compare all of the objects with some _one_ object, chosen as the standard of weight, or common measure of weights. Thought is thus immensely simplified. If we may imagine the calculations of a dealer in a rural region, where no common measure of values is used, it will help to make clear the nature of this function. Let us suppose that he deals in nails, wire, cotton cloth, eggs, butter, hams, sugar, and moonshine whiskey, and that his customers also make and use most of these things, using him as a central clearing house in their rude division of labor. Without a common measure of values, it is necessary for him to keep in mind the price of every commodity in terms of every other commodity. If there are twelve commodities, this means 66 ratios which he must remember, according to the formula for permutations and combinations. In general, in such a situation, there would be the following ratios: (n - 1) + (n - 2) + (n - 3) + ... (n - (n - 1)). Let him choose, however, one of his commodities, say eggs, as the common measure of values, and he needs to bear in mind only eleven prices, namely, the prices of each of the other eleven articles in eggs. Thinking is immensely simplified. In general, with a common measure of values, dealers need bear in mind only (n - 1) prices. Suppose that at the end of the day, after considerable trading, our dealer finds the following changes in his stock:

_He has gained_ _He has lost_ 8 doz. eggs 12 lbs. nails 3 gallons whiskey 8 lbs. wire 4 hams 13 lbs. butter 5 yards cloth 10 lbs. sugar

Has his trading been profitable? How can he tell? Reduce all the items in both columns to their equivalents in eggs, however, and the answer is very easy. No complicated business is possible without this common measure, and common language, of values.

Be it noted that this common measure of values does not necessarily involve the use of a medium of exchange. The practice of _thinking_ in a common measure is what is involved. If the article chosen be eggs, which all are accustomed to use, the service of a common measure might easily be performed without the practice of indirect exchange, assuming that other physical difficulties of barter to which I shall shortly refer, were absent. Indeed, as I have pointed out in the chapter on "Barter" in