Money- Ally Hodgson Revised

Posted on January 19, 2012 by allyhodgson93

Some form of trade is absolutely necessary in any civilization for survival. Trade is essential because one person physically cannot sustain themselves. Farmers have food, but no clothes. Clothing makers have clothes, but no food. But why is money the ideal form of trade? The previously mentioned farmer may meet a clothing maker who has all the food she needs. Instead of the clothing maker trading him clothes for food she doesn’t want, money offers a standard that she can use to buy essential things.

The Yap’s use of huge “coins” may seem strange and quite abstract at first, but with a bit more thought, we can really compare pretty easily to our own currency. The American dollar is just a green piece of paper with pictures, numbers and signatures on it. It has no real value besides the number printed on it. Money does not directly represent an amount of work done, an amount of gold in America’s bank, an amount food or a social status.

Another seemingly strange aspect to the Yap’s currency is that if they don’t want to carry it to someone’s house they just recognize it’s the other person’s. This is very similar to the idea of debit in our society. The money is in an account and with a swipe of a card, its understood by both parties that it transfers from one account to the other without physically changing hands. Our concept of money is just as abstract as the Yap’s, most of us have just failed to realize that.

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4 Responses to Money- Ally Hodgson Revised

  1. allyhodgson93's avatar allyhodgson93 says:
    January 19, 2012 at 12:24 am

    I didn’t have any difficulty posting, it was the same as always. FYI.

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  2. davidbdale's avatar davidbdale says:
    January 23, 2012 at 10:16 am

    I love your opening, Ally! Trade is essential because the fisherman doesn’t grow fruit and the orchard owner doesn’t fish. Trade makes specialization possible. Whatever I produce or services I perform can be traded for what I don’t produce or perform. Money makes those trades even easier than directly trading products and services, but you don’t answer your own question, or say why money is better. Maybe you don’t think it is. You don’t say that either.

    I don’t mind that you started with a rhetorical question (actually, I do, but you can overcome my natural resistance by answering the question promptly) so much as that you asked exactly the right question and then ignored it.

    I numbered your paragraphs for the sake of these comments.

    Your first two sentences deserve a well-developed paragraph of their own.

    Your third and fourth sentences are also the heart of a paragraph that demands it own development.

    Your fifth sentence is a distraction. It might belong with sentences 8 and 9, but you need to decide whether or not to develop that idea.

    Your sixth sentence begins a new idea, which the seventh expands, about the real value of money. But surely you don’t mean it has no value? And most likely you don’t mean the government sets its value either. That it facilitates trade is its value, don’t you think? You started off saying so. And it does quite meaningfully represent an amount of food; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to give it to the grocer in return for that food.

    Sentence 10 advances the definition of money as an abstract measure of buying power, but doesn’t make it meaningless, just more abstract. I’d like to say I see how credit cards parallel Yap’s use of fei, but I don’t. You may mean that wealthy Yap islanders could get goods and services without having to relinquish their big stones, but I’m only guessing until you say something on the subject.

    Your last sentence is pretty solid. Its clear claims, that our money is abstract and that we don’t often consider how abstract it is until we examine someone else’s, are just right. I like your use of first person plural too (much better than your “one may even laugh” in sentence 3).

    Ready to revise?

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  3. davidbdale's avatar davidbdale says:
    February 7, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    P1 is very successful.
    P2 has strong elements, but the comment that wealth is an abstraction is itself a distraction. And saying that the government determines what money is worth is really not accurate. All the government does is print denominations: a ten is worth ten ones. But the market decides what a one is worth.
    3. Nice. I like the analogy of a transferred fei to a debit card swipe!

    Grade Recorded

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