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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 13087, member: 57463"]"I hear the desire for a rational and measurable definition of money, but no follow-through in the examples." I cited examples from community currencies (time dollars), 19th century US society, bullion bars, etc., etc.  I do know what kind of an example you are looking for, but I tried to provide specific examples for each broad statement. "In addition, we cannot create so rigorous a definition of money - or any other word - that it can be derived from logical processes or subject to empirical testing." Here, we disagree on a basic issue in epistemology.  I suspect that if we follow this path, we will come to a basic difference in metaphysics.  Basically, we see the world differently and it pretty much stops there. "The recipient of money must also reasonably expect that he may use the money to acquire a broad range of other items or services or satisfy obligations." My problem with your definitions is that they are vague.  How "many" is "many" things?  How "broad" a community is "broad" enough that what it uses for "money" is "money" in your terms?  As I said, the differences in our approaches to the problem are basic differences in us as individuals. "Not everything which can be converted to money is money; that is not the test.  If it were, everthing would be money.   A rose is a buck is a rose?" The test, to me, is not what the stuff _is_, but how it is _used_.  Cigarettes are money in prison and have been money in other times and places (World War II Europe) and tobacco has been the store of value for money (colonial Maryland and Virginia, if I recall) and in fact, the people actually burned warehouses of tobacco to support the value of their paper receipts for it.  None of that says that tobacco _is_ "money" in your terms, but it does show that according to your definitions tobacco _can_be_ money, if it is used as money.  By money, I mean only that something be a medium of indirect exchange: you accept it now with the intent to trade it later for something else. I agree with you that that in order to do that, to exchange it later for something else, you must have an expectation that the object (or promise) is acceptable to other people.  That is implicit in the definition of indirect exchange. Again, it is not what the stuff _is_ that makes it money, but how it is _used_.  That we do not use old pop bottles to pay our taxes is only a social custom.  In fact, during the Great Depression, employees at the Board of Water and Light in Lansing, Michigan, were paid 10% with BWL scrip which was acceptable for property taxes -- and which passed on the street for groceries, etc. -- because it was accepted at the BWL for payment of electricity and water service.  That was a temporary condition in a small locale.  The scrip was money by my definition.[/QUOTE]

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