Quote from: jtimon on June 26, 2012, 10:28:33 AM

Quote from: MoonShadow on June 25, 2012, 05:57:49 PM

If we did, we would all be austrians. Praxeology (which includes logic, so that statement is redundant) is uniquely related to Austrian Economic theory...

What I want is to either demonstrate or refute Gesell's theory on interest using praxeology. To refute it is necessary to demonstrate that a fixed money supply without demurrage can't produce monetary cycles.

Refuting Gesell's (or anyone's) theories will do nothing to prove that. You can't prove a negative, not even with praxeology. Just because you might be able to disprove a theory, does not imply that your alternative theory is correct.

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Quote from: MoonShadow on June 25, 2012, 05:57:49 PM

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I think that austrians are very accurate in a lot of things, but their prejudices against everything public don't allow them to see anything negative in gold as money, because that could lead to the need of public money.

Take this statement for example. You misrepresent the Austrian persepctive, likely because you don't understand it; which implies that you don't understand the praxeological argument behind it. Austrians don't oppose all things public, nor do we oppose public monetary systems because they are public. Simply put, we oppose central banking because it's an affront to the free market system. When a central bank sets intrest rates, it's engaging in price controls of half of nearly every private exchange. Gold is favored by Austrians because it's historically money, not because it is perfect.

But austrians (if they did somewhere, I think they didn't studied it because they assumed that was equivalent to "keynes-money") refuted Gesell's freigeld by assuming that, being fiat, the government would abuse it. They didn't attacked an public money with fixed supply and demurrage. That abuse can't happen with freicoin. So using praxeology, what's wrong with demurrage?

Such abuse might not be possible with friecoin, but nor is it possible with bitcoin. Bitcoin exists & has a real market, friecoin does not. Freicoin presumes to impose a cost upon savers within it's own economy, bitcoin does not. A simple praxeology argument goes something like this.

Bitcoin eixists & has a value. I can save in bitcoin for less risk to capital than I can in the not yest estqblished friecoin. As an indificual saver, I have every incentive to favor bitcoin over freicoin. All savers are individuals, in fact all economic actors are individuals. Savings leads to capital, capital leads to production, production leads to growth, growth leads to savings; but it all starts with savings. If the incentives for savings don't exist, neither does the economy.

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Quote from: MoonShadow on June 25, 2012, 05:57:49 PM

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Fortunately bitcoin technology makes free market money compatible with demurrage today.

You still havn't shown how to do that without breaking autonomy, as far as I know. Also, the praxeological argument trips up the idea of demurrage. Demurrage is a forced loss, but Bitcoin exists. So there is no logical reason (that I can see) that such a cyrptocurrency with demurrage would be favored by savers. Like it or not 'hoarders' contribute to the value of the currency.

But it is logical for borrowers to prefer freicoin, as they will get lower interest rates. And there's also logical for merchants to accept them, they can use them for their next expenditures and get an insignificant lost.

See above. The fact that vborrowers would prefer friecoin is irrelevent until there is some saver to borrow from. Likewise, merchents are interested in payments, and that is irrelevent if the freicoin has no base of savers to give it value.

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Frecioins could have a lower price but still conduct more trade by circulating faster.

Theorecically, yes. But a true money serves two distinct functions at different times for different people; first as a storage of value, and then as a means of payment. Note that the storage of value must come first.

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Quote from: MoonShadow on June 25, 2012, 06:13:14 PM

Quote from: jtimon on June 25, 2012, 02:48:15 PM

No, I don't see hoarding as productive savings. Can you explain me how it works?

I doubt it, but one productive example of interest free savings is as a form of insurance. For example, certain religious groups believe that they are commanded to prepare for foreseeable events. The bible mentions famines, fires, etc. So these denominations might expect each family to "stock up" on consumables, or an entire church might stock a food bank. Cash can be horded for similar effect. Not for the goal of investment at all, but "saving for a rainy day". This kind of saving is self-insurance against whatever future losses that might present themselves. Individuals do this, so do corporations. Both do it using many methods; individuals could do it by stuffing cash into a mattress, buying gold or silver rounds, or a large pantry stocked with non-perishable. Corporations could do it by warehousing materials needed for manufacturing inputs, such as steel or plastics; by speculating on the futures markets for same, or by hoarding cash, quite literally in a 'cash-on-hand' account; or by buying gold. Governments do the same thing, usually by hording resources such as oil.

Funds used in this manner are sometimes put into low risk investment methods, such as a money market account, but the general idea is that those funds should not be put at risk of loss, because they are insurance not investments.

Nothing wrong with hoarding real stuff. From the financial point of view I was counting those as spending (like investments with non-loaned money). From the saver's perspective they can be considering savings and an insurance.
But saving money doesn't prepare society better for a rainy day. A society that hoards 40% of its monetary base is not better prepared for a rainy day than one which hoards 5% of its money supply.
Think of an island of farmers that hoards money during good times. When a disaster happens all habitants take their money out to buy food but there isn't. Where's the storage of value here?

SAvings isn't about preparine society, it's about preparing individuals. Praxeology shows that society doesn't even exist, it's just a colloective concept to dexcribe a massive number of individuals. Furthermore, savings witihn any currency cannot insure the saver from the breadkdown of civilizations, but only from smaller, local catastrophies. Insuring oneselef from the end of the world is impossible.

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No, money is not a commodity. Cash is just like indirected credit. You have provided wares to society and society as a whole owes you.

Money is a commodity. Prove me wrong if you think you can. currency is not a commodity, and until you understand the difference you cannot understand praxeology ir Austrian economic theories.

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But hoarding money (despite not being an insurance for society as a whole) is an insurance to uncertainty for the money hoarder. And he gets that insurance for free (no significant storage costs) so that's clearly an externality.

That's not clear to me, make it clear.

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Money is information about who have produced and consumed what.

No, that would be currency, not money.

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And cash-money (as opposed to credit-money) is just an implicit agreement among all its users, that will keep on accepting it. That agreement has been broken a lot of times in history and could be broken (demonetization) for gold just like has been broken for silver or fiat (usually through hyperinflation).

This is provablely false. Gold & silver have both had a positive trade value for 6K & 4K years repectively. They are both money, although they have not alwasy been currencies. Note the differencers.

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The point is that the agreement (be it enforced [fiat] or voluntary) is flawed if it presents unfair externalities,

Define an 'unfair' externality. And when you're done with that, explain to me (as an individual saver) why I should care about fairness. If you can get this far, you might be half way to understanding Praxeology.

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springs economic rents and causes monetary cycles. If the material upon which that agreement is made does not present a compulsion to circulate (for example, gold), the agreement will suffer from those diseases.
I'm not against the free market, what I want is to make those voluntary agreements more efficient within the free market.

I can agree that you are not against the free market, as you understand it. You just don't understand it.