Barkley

Perhaps we need for a pause for reflection?  I fear my criticisms have not
been met, nor yet understood.  So I will do my best to summarise this pause
point below

BR <<The demographic low point for western Europe in the later Middle Ages
came with the plague in mid 14th century, which followed a half century of
ongoing famine and economic crisis.  By the next century, the continent was
recovering nicely both economically and demographically.>>

This is the account taught in schoolrooms for the last century or more, and
it was certainly the one taught to me.  However, it seems to be false. 
Europe’s exploitative gold phase ran on right down to the mid 1460’s.  I
have cited good evidence for this conclusion from Spufford (monetary
matters) and Hatcher (wage data) and have not had any refutation of the position

BR  <<Do you really take a statement by Akbar as a convincing disproof of
Braudel in India?>>

No.  I repeat, the position Braudel suggests is, in itself, inherently
impossible.  India’s return to silver in 1538 cannot be driven by new world
silver which was not even discovered until 1545!!!  

The quote from Akbar is offered rather to explain the true situation, that
coin issue was motivated by the political policies of the state, aimed at
curbing financial exploitation by rentiers, which was thriving under
previous laissez faire policies.

BR  <<On Charlemagne, I note that his livre was strictly a unit of account,
although widely used throughout Europe once it was invented.  Nobody every
minted a coin that was a pound of silver anywhere.>>

The only really plausible account of Charlemagne's metrology I have found is
that deduced by Grierson.  Thus there was not one livre, but two.  A bullion
livre used to trade outside the empire (16 Roman ounces) and a coin livre
for use inside the empire (15 Roman ounces)  

240 x 1.7g = 408g = 15 x 27.2g etc.

Thus, unlike John Locke, but in tune with Barbon, del Mar, and the British
reforms of 1816, Charlemagne perhaps did understand the role seigniorage
played in protecting the internal money supply

BR  <<Let me conclude by returning to the original point of this thread.>>

A welcome move

 BR  <<For a period the Abbasids were arguably even the world leader in all
this, symbolized by their defeat of the Chinese at the Battle of Lake Tana,
which triggered an inward turn by the Chinese from the openness of the early
Tang dynasty, and which would culminate in the rigidification under the
neo-Confucianism of the Song dynasty.>>

On the contrary, I would argue that the enlightened and progressive
neo-Confucian monetary policy was brought to a zenith during the Song
dynasty.  Much later, George Berkeley saw the superiority of this Chinese
system and recommended its adoption in the West.  The Chinese monetary model
was later described and promoted from the floor of the British parliament
just prior to the first phase of its currency reform in 1816.  The sort of
transitions and debates that happened in China 2,000 years ago were then
repeated in the West during the 20th century, resulting in a currency (post
1947 in the case of the UK) which is exactly that recommended by George
Berkeley, on the basis of the Chinese model.  The hard proof of this is in
your pockets.

I am afraid discussion of wars and paintings does not seem much relevant to
this story, quite the contrary, they seem to me more like a very old way of
changing the subject, when the matter of economic justice comes to the fore.
 As Popper reminded us, Plato urged a preference for Sparta over Miletos
because he claimed they wrote better music. 

Rob Tye, York, UK