Rudolf Steiner describes the process of money ageing in his 1922
Economics lectures with the intention not of proposing a scheme but
introducing a "pregnant image" that brings home the idea that money,
where it exists as a counterpart to goods, competes unfairly with them
if it is not made subject to the process of decay one finds in the
world of goods.
I think this instance of dated currency (see below) is distinct both
from the Gesellian idea to increase velocity and from the 'assault' on
the underground economy.
Arthur Edwards
As things are today, the function of money has constantly to be
corrected. ...
Now let us suppose that we really make up our minds to allow money to
grow old. Suppose you have a certain piece of money, no matter what
its substance, or what the date inscribed on it. Say it is 1910. And
now you take another piece of money with the date 1915. The 1915
money begins to exist, as money, economically, in that year. And now
suppose that by some reasoned treatment it undergoes the process which
is undergone by all other exchangeable products, namely, that it loses
its value after a certain time. The precise figures I mention are not
important; they are merely illustrations. The actual figures required
would have to be the subject of infinitely numerous - but perfectly
possible - calculations, as we shall presently perceive. Suppose,
therefore, for the sake of example, that the piece of money would
have lost its value by the year 1940. Now if money loses its value in
the economic process, after twenty-five years a piece of money bearing
the date 1910 will have lost its value in the year 1935. Thus to the
money which I carry about on me I should assign a peculiar property -
a kind of age. This 1910 money is older; it will die earlier than the
1915 money. Now you may say: “That is just a scheme.” But, it is
nothing of the sort. What I have just explained to you is the actual
reality. That is how the economic process actually wills it. The
economic process of its own accord makes money grow old. The fact
that it does not appear to grow old - the fact that we still buy
things with 1910 money after 1935 is only a mask. In doing so we do
not really buy with this money; but with a fictitious money-value.
On 26 Sep 2010, at 09:23, Robert Leeson wrote:
> Is there any literature on dated currency (currency that has an
> expiry date as legal tender) as an assault on the underground economy?
>
> Robert Leeson
> [log in to unmask]
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