Re: Money is an imaginary concept, but humanity is enslaved by it

Red: But you can't say that. Money does not represent some or any amount of goods. When you have money, you and the one you want to trade with, still have to consider the preference of money over the goods. There is no requiring of goods for money, it is all speculation of what you will be able to trade them for. There is no such thing as going into a shop and just buy, either you accept the shop owners offer, or you make an offer that he might accept. This point is crucial and makes money different from debt, or the debt-based gift economy.

Before we continue, I think, you should substantiate your previous claim about how I misunderstood the word "intrinsic" in respect to money. It is not something that you could say and get away with, so you'd better first take responsibility for your words...

And I still don't understand what you mean

Intrinsic, by and in itself, with regard to money, is the direct use value. If you can eat it, for example it has intrinsic value. Gold has some intrinsic value, since it can be used in electronics and for pretty things (the use for pretty things can be somewhat foggy, because the reason for carrying a gold bracelet may not only be for decoration, but also for the money reserve).

You still didn't say how I misunderstood the word, you're just saying how you understand it. You see it is always risky to say things like that, since you may be asked to explain how I (or anyone else for that matter) understood it (even incorrectly), that is, explain my point. I'm all ears, go ahead...

Looking back, it seems you used the word "value as such", not intrinsic, but I read it as the same concept.

As you should have known by now (since we had discussed similar issues previously), I maintain the idea that nothing has intrinsic value, all value being subjective. That's why I double-quoted the word. And yes, I meant just that, "direct use value" in your speak, something that you can eat, figuratively speaking in respect to money indeed (the utility of money per se I explained before). Regarding your "exchange value" (it seems that now I get what you mean), you describe not value but the universal machinery which makes exchange possible ("an individual's preference for one thing over another"), irrespective of money. If money didn't represent things which can be bought with it, the exchange with money as an intermediary wouldn't be possible. In fact, the very concept of money wouldn't be possible if things didn't have what you call "exchange value", since there would be no exchange in the first place. Money just represents this "exchange value" of things. This is being proven by the fact that any exchange through money (goods-money-goods) can be done directly, i.e. without money (goods-goods), therefore the value of money is not in the exchange itself...

Here we go again. You may be correct, but using inaccurate, random definitions. How is it possible to regard intrinsic as contrary to subjective?