tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson) (02/17/86)
(I noticed an undetected error in sending something when I went to check an error I'd made in mailing. Sorry if this is a reposting.) >> ... (Incidentally, money is a fallout of property >> rights. It loses its magic where ownership and trade of the >> means of production are completely forbidden. Its >> objectivity is the consequence of the objectivity of >> property rights.) > Is this theoretical or can you give an example of such an > instance or place? What substitutes for money? Barter? > In Poland when mistrust of the currency was rising the > people fell back to barter and used liquor and cigarettes > (things *of* value) as the medium of exchange. Firstly, Poland is not an autarky (not "autarchy"; look them up). It is still connected by money to privately owned means of production. Secondly, I don't regard something as forbidden if it is only half-heartedly forbidden. So the black market in Poland, just as the black market in the U.S., could save Poland from the worst consequences of what is only explicitly forbidden. Of course, investment would still be crippled; an autarky would crumble. That is probably why there is no historical example of a pure, large, suicidal autarky to offer you; most people would resort to pragmatism, and perhaps small, workable autarky, when faced with their destruction. It is claimed by some that an effect of Diocletian's edict upon the Roman Empire was feudalism before Rome's collapse. Close enough? Thirdly, and not surprisingly, cigarettes can be money. (Silver lining in a dark cloud? Sorry about that.) The fact that they are not officially sanctioned as money vitiates their beneficence but does not destroy it. Barter can progress from direct exchange, in which a good is traded for because it is valued, to indirect exchange, in which a good is traded for because it can be traded for something that is valued. (By virtue of that use, and conditional on that, it acquires additional value, and therefore possibly greater price.) Lastly, to the extent that people have the power to thwart a government's violation of political rights, they are the law and the government, and they can establish legal rights. But it takes a long haul to get there. (If I remember correctly, the song was in counterpoint to "Summertime" in the unabridged *Porgy and Bess*. If so, it offered a lyrical counterpoint as well.) David Hudson