Talk:Medium of exchange

In relation to barter
Thank you for defining this very clear concept that helped us to define what barter is. Olivierchaussavoine 19:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Time
A medium of exchange must retain it´s value over time, therefore it must have memory. Most exchange mechanism models (if any), do not take memory into consideration.

I´ll make the addition to the list. (Fractalhints (talk) 16:17, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

Banks & Medium of Exchange
I very much disagree with the second paragraph under "From barter to exchange". Banking need not depend upon the existence of "worthless currency". Banking can certainly function in a "gold coin" only society. I also disagree with the statement that banking must be backed by the state. Early U.S. banks were private entities. 147.177.36.73 (talk) 19:45, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

NPOV dispute - Definition
The assertion that fiat money "creates one of the worst frauds against humanity and is the root cause of the continuum of economic crises" does not appear to be neutral in position. For example, I doubt that a Marxist would agree. If the assertion were something like "according to X, fiat money is ...", then there wouldn't be a problem. In other words, I'm not disputing that this point of view belongs in the article, I'm simply disputing that this point of view should be stated as fact. Nmj4 (talk) 16:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've tried to improve some of the language in the disputed section (correct me if I misunderstood something). I also tried to address the POV problem by introducing the disputed claim as one possible alternative, and then offering a reference to an alternate interpretation. Nmj4 (talk) 16:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It's been a month, and not enough people seem to be interested for this dispute to qualify as a discussion. I'm removing the POV tag. Nmj4 (talk) 16:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

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Orphaned references in Medium of exchange
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Medium of exchange's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "mankiw": From Standard of deferred payment:  From Money:  From Fiat money:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 23:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * ✅ thanks Anomie Jonpatterns (talk) 09:15, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Medium of Exchange and Measure of Value not good enough
This whole section should be removed as tangential I have covered the important points in a new section explaining just how the medium of exchange works Most of this section is turgid text and neoliberal ideology, which I have marked as dubious. E.g.

"Fiat currencies' most important and essential function is to provide a 'measure of value'" - Who's to say what is the 'most important' function. Why does this even need saying on the medium of exchange page?

"It should have constant intrinsic value" - The dollar does perfectly well with no intrinsic value.

"Gold was long popular as a medium of exchange" - This is a goldbug assertion. Gold was never as popular a medium as silver, cowry shells, bills of exchange. Gold has been minted into many coins, but its use as a medium of exchange was only really introduced as a result the great (silver) bullion famine, and even then only for high value items and international trade.

"[Gold] had a constant value" - This is only possible to assert under the gold standard when the price was mandated by law and constant therefore by definition. It is not because of any chemical properties of gold that its value is constant. The rest of the section is just irrelevant. Matslats (talk) 17:21, 10 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree this section is poor. Jonpatterns (talk) 20:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Lede
I disagreed with the new lede saying:

A medium of exchange is anything which is exchanged with one party for what one has, and and with another party for what one wants.

This misses the point and would mean anything that could be bartered would have the function of medium of exchange. The critical thing about the function of medium of exchange it that it is widely accepted - thus it can act as an intermediary.

See https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mediumofexchange.asp

I've rewrote the lede to emphasize that medium of exchange comes from considering the functions of money. Jonpatterns (talk) 20:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Jon I was describing the literal meaning, how an exchange can be mediated by a medium. The wide acceptance of a medium of exchange or the convention to use one particular medium in all exchanges in a market might make it money, but this page is not about money. To me it is very important to understand how money acts as a medium of exchange, by splitting the barter etc, before adding the extra factors and complications around the politically charged notion of what is money and who decides what is money. Matslats (talk) 21:35, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Arpan
Medium of exchange 49.149.110.170 (talk) 13:06, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Disagreement with the Definition.
"A medium of exchange is any item that is widely acceptable in exchange for goods and services." Is this not just money? A medium of exchange doesn't need to be widely acceptable, as opposed to money. An individual may purchase a rock with the intent of giving it to a Geologist in return for something from that Geologist; in this situation, the rock is a medium of exchange but it is not widely acceptable as most people don't value rocks as Geologists do. Dysgenicduck (talk) 05:20, 11 July 2024 (UTC)