Wieser holds that it is possible to have money wholly apart from a commodity basis (I, p. 45), citing the Austrian _Staatsnoten_ as a case in point. The reason for giving them up is that they do not circulate in foreign trade. Gold fulfills its international money-functions the more easily because of its various employments, but, after it is thoroughly historically introduced, as money, it could fulfill its money functions even if all these employments be thought away (46). Wieser gives no argument for this contention, and its validity will be examined later.[70] There are, he says, two sources for the value of gold, the money use and the arts use, interacting. Money is further removed from wants, not only than consumption goods, but also than production goods, which are but consumption goods in the seed. The latter are technically destined for definite goods. But money may be used to procure whatever good you please, in exchange. (The absoluteness of this distinction, also, may be questioned. Pig iron is almost as unspecialized as money in its relation to wants, since tools enter into the production of almost every service that human wants require, from surgical operations, through instrumental music, to wheat and horse-shoes. On the other hand, money is not the only thing by means of which other things are purchased. The extent of barter in modern life will wait for later discussion.[71] I do not think that _any_ sharp distinction between money and all other things is valid.) Wieser complains of the older economics which treats money as a commodity. And he contends that as money and commodities show a contrast in their essence (_Wesen_), they should also manifest a contrast in the laws of their values, even though the fundamental general theory of value applies to both (I, 47). He finds in representatives of money (_Geldsurrogate_) and in velocity of circulation of money, factors which are lacking in commodities. (Again a question must be interjected by the writer. Are not corporation securities essentially like _Geldsurrogate_ from this angle? And do not goods vary greatly in the number of times they are exchanged? What of the speculative markets, where more sales are made in an active market, at times, than there are commodities or securities of the type dealt in in existence?) The value of money is essentially bound up with the money-service. Wieser indicates that he is not talking about the subjective value of money, but its objective value, using the popular meaning of the term, which, he says, is not strictly logical, but is useful: the relation of money to all other goods which are exchanged, the purchasing power of money. This depends on goods as well as on money. In the second article, Wieser refines and elaborates his conception of the objective value of money, seeking to get away from the notion of relativity which is involved in the conception of purchasing power, and to get an absolute conception, which shall be a causal factor