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Societies for the History of Economics

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From:
Robert Tye <[log in to unmask]>
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Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 23 Dec 2022 03:50:23 -0500
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No criticisms of my last thus I press on towards a further question.  

Notice first two views expressed around 1600

1) The Emperor Akbar, attempting to rule the perfect Empire, stated he asked only one thing of a state when it was incorporated into his empire:  that it adopted his system of measurement.

2) Shakespeare, attempting to portray the perfect tyrant Macbeth, had him say: “let the frame of things disjoint”

In context, Akbar’s state fixed trimetallic currency system was a direct product of his metrological system.  Meanwhile, notice that the legally imposed weight of a penny loaf in England in Shakespeare’s day would be expressed in pounds, shillings and pence.

Getting to my question, I take it that when Wittgenstein wrote about measurement via “soft rubber rulers” around 1936 British money had already been decoupled from general metrology via abandonment of gold convertibility.  It seem to me that modern targeting of 2% inflation imposes a kind of ‘elastic metrology’ specific to money, but in practice, that lay decades in the future.  However I judge Gessell had already proposed a different sort of elastic metrology specific to money, which Keynes had taken note of.

I have some knowledge of Keynes’ rather curious approach to the measurement of probability, but scanty knowledge of his General Theory, so ask for opinion on where Keynes stood regarding the elastic measurement of money in 1936.  Am I correct in suspecting Wittgenstein’s comment was prompted by his long conversations with Keynes?

Robert Tye, York, UK

https://independent.academia.edu/RobertTye

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