And if you look at history, gold wasn't imposed. It emerged (bottom-up).
I disagree. I believe this phrase, 'rich as Croesus,' would find quite the opposite point of emergence if studied a bit. Just to say that I feel the value given to gold from its collection by great societies, rulers, empires, etc lead to its use in trade and not the other way around.
From what archaeologists know, humanity began to play with gold around 4000BC (
link), a lot before Croesus. And it's the first proof we have, so it's probably even older.
At that time it was only jewelery, just another good to trade. Quite the same idea as today, people like to wear shiny rocks, something I don't really get, but apparently the average human disagree with me (ask women
). That's where the value of gold (or silver) appeared.
It was only later that it became one of the most used form of money, because people understood that it was scarce, and impossible to create from something else (though a lot of people tried). Nowadays it's possible, but insanely expensive (
Synthesis of precious metals).
And btw, rulers never liked gold or silver as money, because they were not able to counterfeit it. How are you supposed to pay for crazy invasion wars with a limited amount of money ?
A interesting example is one of the first inflation of modern history during the roman empire, where the silver denarius went from 95% silver to 0.02% in 200 years (
link).
gold is cool and all, but this is the 21st century
can't we make the a perfect money?
limited supply
impossible to counterfeit
easy to transfer, secure p2p exchange
I wouldn't be here if I didn't agree with that. But we have to let the market make this choice. That's a lot of people, with a big inertia. Gold still have a long time to go (if only for jewelery).
Anyway is it really a problem if we use both ?
