The Value of MoneyAnderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
General
The Value of Money
Anderson, Benjamin M. (Benjamin McAlester)
Money
There is a further difficulty, to which attention will be called more
fully in later chapters, particularly the chapter on "Dodo Bones," and
the chapter on the "Functions of Money." In other cases, in general, the
capital value is, as the capitalization theory requires it to be, a true
shadow, a passive function of the income and the discount, of the disk
and the distance between the candle and the disk. In the case of money,
however, the income is causally dependent, in part, upon the capital
value. Money can function as money only by virtue of having value. The
shadow becomes substance in the case of money. It is the _value of
money_ which makes possible the _money work_. The capitalization theory,
thus, if applicable at all, must be radically modified before being
applied. We shall subsequently, in the chapters above referred to, take
account of this fundamental complication. For the present, we can state
it merely as a problem: how can we construe the interaction of the
income value of money and the capital value of money in such a way as to
avoid a circular theory?
But further, the capitalization theory, as heretofore formulated, like
the doctrines of supply and demand and cost of production, assumes
_money_, and a _fixed absolute value_ of money. This assumption must be
made if we are to be able to predict, on the basis of the capitalization
theory, that a given annual income, at a given rate of discount, will
give a specified capital value. This may be shown by the following
considerations: If men anticipate that the value of the income, which is
a fixed sum of dollars, is to grow less in the future, then the present
worth of the bearer of that income will shrink to an extent greater than
the "pure rate" of interest would call for. The principle of
"appreciation and interest" comes in. The nominal interest, in times of
falling value of money, tends to exceed the pure rate by an amount which
compensates for the loss in value of future income as the dollar falls
in value. We have here, however, a principle different from the
principle of time discount. It is not the influence of time, which makes
a _given_ value appear smaller as it is further removed in time, but it
is an anticipated lessening in the value of the income itself, that
counts. In terms of our candle and disk illustration, it is a factor
affecting the size of the disk, rather than a factor affecting the
distance between the disk and the candle. For the purposes of
calculation, the two elements in the nominal rate of interest may be
lumped together, and the nominal rate, rather than the pure rate, may be
taken as the rate of discount for capitalization purposes. But for
theoretical purposes, the two must be kept distinct. The capitalization
theory rests on the assumption of a fixed value of the money unit.
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