Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island CommunityWells, David Ames
General
Robinson Crusoe's Money;: or, The Remarkable Financial Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Remote Island Community
Wells, David Ames
Currency question -- United States; Money
[Note.--This last remark of the learned court embodied a great
discovery; for how can there be a representative without something to
represent? In the case of Peter Schlemihl, there was a man without
a shadow; but here we have a shadow without any substance to make
it. A gold dollar is not a specific and mechanically formed coin;
but 25.8 grains of standard gold is a dollar. Did the court mean
that these grains of gold may never have existed, and yet have
representatives?--Author.]
The moment this decision was received, all the philosophers got
down their dictionaries, and searched for the meaning of the
word "ideal." As was anticipated, its definition was found to be
"visionary;" "existing in fancy or imagination only" (Webster); and
from this time forth there was no longer any doubt in the minds of the
reformers of the truth and strength of the position they occupied. For,
to descend to reasoning, were not two intricate questions definitely
settled by the highest of human tribunals? 1st. That the representative
of a thing may be (and if those in authority say so, shall be)
equivalent to the thing itself. 2d. That value is an ideal thing,
and therefore imagination, which creates all ideal things, can
create value.
It followed, of course, that to have and enjoy any thing and
every thing, it is only necessary to create and use its symbol or
representative; and to pay for value received, it is only necessary
to imagine a corresponding and equivalent value, and pass it over
in exchange and settlement. On these conclusions of law and reason,
then, it was decided by the three leaders of the philosophers and
their friends, who had control of the Government, that the future
money of the state should be based. The former inscription on the
currency in use, "promise to pay," they were clear, was entirely
unnecessary; for why promise money when the store on hand of money
was to be made practically unlimited, or, at least, always equal to
the wants of every body who desired to have it, whether he traded or
not? Mathematical calculations were also made by a scientist, which
proved that the amount of labor which would be actually saved to the
community, and made available for other purposes, by using something
as money which cost little or no labor to produce, in place of gold
or commodities which represented much labor, would be so great as
to require the immediate enactment of a law prohibiting any one from
working over six hours per day, in order to guard against the evil of
too great abundance. The same scientist had previously been so carried
away by his demonstrations of the utility of a new stove which saved
half the fuel, that he had recommended the purchase of two stoves in
order to save the whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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