Quote from: Erdogan on September 17, 2014, 01:26:18 PM

Quote from: jersey19957 on September 17, 2014, 12:16:47 PM

Value is FICTIONAL. A human mind made concept. Anything can have value if people agree it has value.

It is human all right. Some animals can run faster, see better, navigate in the dark, navigate using earth magnetism, some can fly etc. Some animals organize in herds. Some animals create tools and use them. Some animals can learn. But no animal that I know of engage in trade. Exchange some item of value for another with a stranger, both parties being better off.

The value is assigned to something by each human. It is real. Imagine finding yourself in a strange country, where the locals look at you with suspicion and are ready to scare you away, you are hungry and freezing. Having some value in the form of money will make a very real difference.

Value is an abstract concept that has real impact. There is no contradiction in the fact that a mutual agreement can have consequences in the real world.

If you observe which things are / have been used as money, you will notice that most of these things have no or only very limited utility in itself besides the mutually agreed value. It's exactly only the mutual agreement / common belief of value that constitutes money. Using money for other things (like plowing fields, feeding livestock, wiping butts Cheesy

) where it gets damaged or depleted is in fact counterproductive in regard to its universal usability as a store of value.