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PBS investigates why a dollar has value.
It is not because of the gold in Fort Knox. There used to be gold behind the dollar, but not now. President Richard Nixon cut the last ties in 1971, effectively ending the foundation of the Bretton Woods international monetary system.
Rather, the ultimate reason that the U.S. dollar has value, at least in the opinion of some economists, and in my own, is that no one likes being in jail. And dollars are a get-out-of-jail-free card.
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There are two times when a man doesn't understand a woman -- before
marriage and after marriage.
(Score: 1) by L.M.T. Spoon on Monday April 14 2014, @03:29AM
If people only used perishable goods for trading/bartering, they would only be able to amass approximately as much property as they could produce with their own labor. Money--gems, gold, silver, etc.--that is not perishable allows one to accumulate great amounts of valuable things that can then be converted into property or labour. Now, of course, in a an increasingly "equal" society (i.e. departing from serfdom), as money becomes an accessible means of interaction for the general population, it gains a quality of contractual worth--that of a promise. Taken together, in at least the modern Western world, money allows one to have a non-perishable means or guarantee of future agreements with people. Be it about property, service, or something else, this is a very valuable thing.
Naturally, one can imagine other valid societal systems.