0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 9 Jan 2023 \ on: The Forgotten Fourth Function of Money bitcoin
I'll offer some nuance, or maybe just nitpicks. When Hoppe and other Austrians distinguish currencies and money, part of that has to do with currencies only serving some of the roles of money, or serving the roles poorly.
The article brings up that currency isn't the main store of value for most people, they have assets. Partly, there's no issue with this as no Austrian to my knowledge has ever claimed money would be the sole form of wealth, but the fact that fiat currencies are such poor stores of value is a knock on them as monies. There is perhaps another distinction to be made here between entrepreneurial investment and savings. I think the general Austrian claim would be that people do not save in fiat currencies because they are poor, or incomplete, monies.
Fiat currencies are also imperfect as units of account, because there is no universal currency across the globe.
Both of these issues might be said to simply illustrate that there is no true money, yet. Hoppe argues that eventually one money will out compete the others and it would do so by serving as the general medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account.
I should have referenced this paper, which is not source material, but a more recent interpretation claiming that the monetary functions all arise from the good that is most saleable. https://www.cato.org/blog/three-pronged-blunder-or-what-money-what-it-isnt
I suppose the general concept is there is excessive focus on economic questions related to spot positions, as opposed to legibilizing the fact that most people are holding futures of sorts, and allowing the moneyness of their futures to harden. Money is needed because we have imperfect information, but that does not mean we can radically improve predictions about the future for the interim time without sound money being widely adopted.
Preferences for the future are actually not as subjective as one might think: a steak, a pile of bamboo sticks, or a cellphone -- which one would each individual out of 100 people choose for lunch? -- clearly desires are far more objective than one might realize with a cursory glance.
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