Source: Cobden Centre
by James Turk
“Many modern economists struggle to define money. Often beginning with an historical overview of the concept of moneyness, they generally end by describing the functions of money. What money ‘does’ is not a definition of what money ‘is.’ Another way they strive to define money is with the use of adjectives. A common example is ‘sound money,’ which is like saying ‘wet water.’ The adjective is superfluous because the noun is intuitively understood, or at least should be, as it was to the pioneers of the Austrian School. Although I obviously cannot speak for Menger and Mises, their intuitive understanding of money is different from that of modern writers. It had to be because the environmental factors when they were writing a century or more ago were so very different from today given the then prevailing everyday use of gold and silver.” (01/22/26)