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Is money private property?

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, January 25, 2012, 07:10:37 PM

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Cain

The difference is, money's only utility is in value.

iPods might be worth less, but they'll still do what they were designed to do, play music, and that doesn't change no matter how much I affect the iPods in my property.  It may affect value, but it wont affect utility.

When you affect the value of money itself, then you affect its utility.  That is what places money on a different conceptual level to normal property.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 07:36:25 PM
I think this question also only makes sense for fiat currency. If the dollar is like an ownership deed for a small piece of a gold bar somewhere, then it's definitely private property, no?

In totally straight legal terms, of course money is private property -- I can't just help myself to money from your wallet, that's your money.

Quote from: Nigel on January 25, 2012, 07:10:37 PM
The definition I am using (feel free to add your own definition if you don't agree with this one) is that money is a government-defined representation of the exchange of goods and services, used as currency in trade.

Forgive me if I'm squinting too hard at this, but how can money symbolically represent the trade AND be the thing being traded?

I am not sure I said that? It doesn't represent the trade (a contract, aka a receipt represents the trade), it is the currency used to represent the goods or services being traded.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 07:39:30 PM
how did the discussion in your class go, Nigel?

My teacher said that money is too complicated and shut it down.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cain

Of course, all my arguments are predicated on the idea of a fiat currency.  A currency where something like gold is used as the base unit of currency would follow different rules, naturally, because it is a) a limited resource, and b) has utility aside from acting as a form of currency.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Nigel on January 25, 2012, 07:10:37 PM
I asked this question in my sociology class yesterday and it shut the class down. I know we treat it as private property, but is it really?

The definition I am using (feel free to add your own definition if you don't agree with this one) is that money is a government-defined representation of the exchange of goods and services, used as currency in trade.

It's legal tender (as you say above).  As such, it can be considered private property in the same way a cow is a farmer's private property (ie, the value of said property is set by society, but it's still yours until you trade it).
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Nigel on January 25, 2012, 08:21:53 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 07:39:30 PM
how did the discussion in your class go, Nigel?

My teacher said that money is too complicated and shut it down.

Your teacher is defective.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cramulus

Quote from: Cain on January 25, 2012, 08:20:29 PM
The difference is, money's only utility is in value.

ahhh that makes sense!

Quote from: Nigel on January 25, 2012, 08:20:56 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 07:36:25 PM
I think this question also only makes sense for fiat currency. If the dollar is like an ownership deed for a small piece of a gold bar somewhere, then it's definitely private property, no?

In totally straight legal terms, of course money is private property -- I can't just help myself to money from your wallet, that's your money.

Quote from: Nigel on January 25, 2012, 07:10:37 PM
The definition I am using (feel free to add your own definition if you don't agree with this one) is that money is a government-defined representation of the exchange of goods and services, used as currency in trade.

Forgive me if I'm squinting too hard at this, but how can money symbolically represent the trade AND be the thing being traded?

I am not sure I said that? It doesn't represent the trade (a contract, aka a receipt represents the trade), it is the currency used to represent the goods or services being traded.

ah, I see - I had gotten tripped up on the phrase "money is a government-defined representation of the exchange"

I think (and this is just my uneducated opinion) that with fiat currency, the value is itself the thing being traded; the cash isn't really a symbol of goods or services. When I buy something from a store, the currency I hand them doesn't represent a brick of gold somewhere, it's just a symbol of value.




Typing that paragraph gave me a headache and I'm actually more confused than when I started.



Quote from: Nigel on January 25, 2012, 08:21:53 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 07:39:30 PM
how did the discussion in your class go, Nigel?

My teacher said that money is too complicated and shut it down.

:lulz:

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 08:34:58 PM
When I buy something from a store, the currency I hand them doesn't represent a brick of gold somewhere, it's just a symbol of value.


Gold is largely only a symbol of value, as well.  Industrially speaking, it has less use than zinc or iron.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

East Coast Hustle

Quote from: Cramulus on January 25, 2012, 08:06:30 PM
Quote from: Fuck You One-Eye on January 25, 2012, 07:40:56 PM
Actually, in strictly legal terms, money is NOT private property, at least not in the USA. I'm pretty sure it's the property of the federal reserve.

It's a federal crime to deface currency in a manner that renders it unfit for circulation.

Do you mean the little slips of paper we trade, or the value that those slips represent? I think the green slips of paper are definitely owned by the Federal Reserve, but are the assets in your bank account federal property? If so, it would be illegal (theft, in fact!) to move your money offshore, right?

I feel so uneducated about economics right now.


Quote from: Cain on January 25, 2012, 07:42:56 PM
In that larger sense, the idea of money as private property is a kind of fiction, as one cannot assert sovereign control over it.

great point... here's my question - is value something you can have sovereign control of? I mean, in your ipod example, burning 3000 ipods might actually change apple's supply/demand, and thereby affect everybody's ipod's value.

By that logic, could you say NOTHING is private property, because its value is determined by stuff like market forces?



I think you (and perhaps several other people) are confusing money with wealth.
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"

Cramulus


navkat

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 25, 2012, 07:27:29 PM
Perhaps money is potential private property?  If you don't use it, it doesn't do (or mean) very much.  But you can use it to purchase private property.  Money is the means to aquire private property.

Did I just call money a verb?

This is basically how I view it. I mean it's a certificate/representation of an investment in a system that honors it for a certain amount of end-value that yes, belongs to you. You own the entitlements as implied by its acceptance and also the responsibilities of being one of the people to keep your chips in that game.

I mean, money, at its purest, represents work saved up. The problem is not that there are people who have enough work-hours saved that they never have to work again but that the amount of work-hours assessed in trades isn't consistent.

Here's another mind-number: how much more in work-hours do you think it's fair for a person to save up over and above hours left in their own and their children's lives combined? Isn't owning a whole bunch more than you have hours in your life like owning the hours of another? At what point does that become a form of servitude/slavery?

Odd when you think of it that way, eh?

The Good Reverend Roger

Money, as RAW said, is the Schroedinger's cat of society.

In a sense.

You can own it, but it has no value if you keep it.  You can use it to increase your standard of living, but then you don't own it.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

LMNO

I just calculated how fast I'm losing money, and then I couldn't find it anymore.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 25, 2012, 09:04:19 PM
I just calculated how fast I'm losing money, and then I couldn't find it anymore.

Stop counting, and it's still gone.  So it's like Schroedinger's cat, only when you open the box, someone gave the cat to Goldmann-Sachs.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

kingyak

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 25, 2012, 08:54:58 PM
You can use it to increase your standard of living, but then you don't own it.

Not entirely true. A lot of people improve their standard of living without giving up ownership of their money. Sometimes by taking a risk that they will, in fact, give up ownership (gambling/stock market). Sometimes with the threat of what they could do with that money (a company that threatens smaller competitors with lawsuits even when they have no legal case because they know they can win through attrition).
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."-HST