Im not saying money and debt are the same thing. I'm saying that money system arose out of credit systems. Economies only need a ledger to keep track of what anyone owes to anyone else. Early societies operated on gift economies. Barter was something that happened with outside tribes akin to international trade.
But within the tribe they could just remember who owed who something using a ledger like system. If tribes got too big to keep track of IOUs then token money would be the technological breakthrough. When there were rulers/ kings, the king collected taxes so whatever the medium the taxes were that's what's people used as money.
I know that that is a vision. It is as old as John Law's vision in the 17th-18th century. It is the erroneous view of "stable money". Every century, there is an economist independently "discovering" that idea. Keynes was one of them up to a point, but Keynes is actually much less stupid than the neo-Keynesians and also made a lot of sense.
You are perfectly right that IOU is the way to work together in *tight social cercles* and then *money is not necessary*. Money is necessary when the other is an unknown, indirect trade is wanted, and the other and his tribe is essentially untrusted.
You must not confuse the state (the king) wanting to exercise control, and the state (the king) wanting to invent something.
I agree that in the past gold solved the problem of international trade because there was a global market for gold. So holding gold you could always find a buyer somewhere.
Exactly. And when you were holding gold, not to use it as a consumption good, or as a capital good, but for the sheer reason to trade it for something else, *by definition* gold got a monetary function AND the demand for gold (and hence its price) was higher than the demand for gold for usage. That EXTRA price is exactly its "money" price. Things can get value because they are in demand for indirect trade. THAT value is their monetary value. Monetary value comes from the demand to hold (for a while) an asset for the sole reason to trade it again against something else. Whether there are competing demands for usage is in fact not necessary (but it makes it easier to kick in the speculative cycle).
Keynes is wrong in that quote about kings put their faces on coin for vanity. Perhaps it's part of the reason but not the primary one. The main reason is so people knew it came from the Kings mint. However, Keynes was no gold bug. Quite the opposite. I really don't know why you posted that quote from Keynes
Because this historical vision is the standard vision in economy. So even if you put von Mises and Hayek on doubt, even Keynes, who is all in for state control and state money and so on, acknowledges this vision, it is a proof that this is not the product of an "emotional mind". It is standard economic theory.
I don't even remember what your argument is. You think money needs to be commodity to work? Or do you think that economies don't run on credit?
The nice thing about threads in a forum is that you can scroll back :-)