Philosophy of Money

Discussions center on the definition and nature of money as an abstraction, medium of exchange, or store of value, debating its fungibility, exchangeability, and distinction from commodities or fiat currency.

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#1915
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Keywords

IOU ANY LTV en.m lietaer.com wikipedia.org money value currency store value exchange money just gold fiat fungible money money

Sample Comments

throwawayq3423 Dec 9, 2024 View on HN

Money that isn't freely exchangeable isn't money at all.

fragmede Dec 9, 2025 View on HN

money is just this construct that we invented to distribute limited resources. why are we doing this?

robertlagrant Oct 6, 2022 View on HN

Absolutely - it's just an abstraction layer over the idea of exchange. If there's nothing to exchange, there's no need for money!

darawk Apr 24, 2021 View on HN

Money is just a fungible unit of comparison for types of value, nothing more.

sporkland Jan 24, 2022 View on HN

"the value of ANY currency is only based how much other people accept to give you in exchange"Wasn't that mostly true for gold as well? (Unless you wanted to make jewelry out of it, low utility high status signaling)

gohrt Sep 17, 2015 View on HN

Money, or more properly, _currency_, is not a store of value. Oil, timber, or woool is a store of value -- it is actually something you can use. Money is an abstract "IOU", a right to demand someone give you something of value. At the end of the day, a society with oil, timber and wool is better than a society with only money. The only utility money has is that it facilitates production, instead of leaving people unemployed and starving because they have no convenient way to trade thei

MrNeon Feb 13, 2024 View on HN

Money isn't consumed and it only has value when used.

paulcole Jan 16, 2019 View on HN

Doesn't make a ton of sense. If you can't convert it to currency easily, why does it have value at all?

omegaham Apr 14, 2013 View on HN

Sure. How about "Everyone is using it as a commodity instead of a currency?"

revdrmlkjr Sep 18, 2015 View on HN

Money is already treated as a commodity