I am currently reading Murray Rothbard's "What Has Government Done To Our Money? & The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar". I recently came upon a curios passage that states the following: "I need not go through the familiar but fascinating story of how gold and silver were selected by the market after it had discarded such commodity moneys as cows, fishhooks, and iron hoes."The footnote Rothbard leaves immediately following this sentence reads:"On the process of emergence of money on the market, see the classic exposition of Carl Menger in his Principles of Economics."The very next sentence reads as follows:"And I need also not dwell on the unique qualities possessed by gold and silver that caused the market to select them - those qualities lovingly enunciated by all the older textbooks on money: high marketability, durability, portability, recognizability, and homogeneity."He leaves no footnote for this sentence. And my question is... Does anyone know the names of those "older textbooks" Rothbard refers to? I am interested in learning, specifically, why the market selected gold and silver as currency.Any help is much appreciated...
Callahan's Economics for Real People discusses the topic, and is available online. I think Gordon's An Introduction to Economic Reasoning does as well. Most economics textbooks do, and principles books almost always do.
-Jon
I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools.
Irenicus' Diaries.
Thanks Jon, I appreciate the references... are you aware of anything specifically related to the actual history and evolution of gold as money? More along the lines of a dedicated work as opposed to a chapter or two... Also, any specific textbooks you could recommend?Cheers!
Not really but you might try Mises' The Theory of Money and Credit.
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