Talk:Money in the narrower sense

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The articles on money in the narrow and broad senses reflects Mises's writing well.

But it doesn't give the basics. It doesn't say what test must be made and criteria applied to decide conclusively if a class of things is or isn't money.

This may be due to the fact that, while Mises *expressed* clearly the economics definition of money--to be comprehensive one could word it as 'a class of thing in general use as a medium of indirect exchange'--he doesn't appear ever to have *claimed* that as the economists' definition of money.

The confusion is made manifest when he asserts that banknotes weren't money. To justify a claim that they were not requires showing that banknotes were not in general use as a medium of indirect exchange. But they were!


I don't edit the article for the present because it would invite an arguments-from-authority which I haven't found a rebuttal for in Mises. I could reference quotes where he makes it clear that money is a medium of indirect exchange. But someone could rebut that with a quote that banknotes, which clearly are a medium of indirect exchange, are not money.


First of all, this is an article (or rather a stub) about Mises' definition of "money in the narrower sense", which is a specific subcategory of money. It isn't about money as such - for that see the article on Money.
What it said about banknotes is "It does not include the following: ...and such fiduciary media as bank notes and deposits against which the monetary reserves are less than one hundred percent". It doesn't say that banknotes are not money - only that some banknotes may not be money in this "narrower sense". Pestergaines (talk) 04:42, 21 March 2017 (EDT)