第64章 MONEY OR SIMPLE CIRCULATION(45)

"The raising being but giving of names at pleasure to aliquot parts of any piece，viz.that now the sixtieth part of an ounce still be called a penny，may be done with what increase you please."In reply to Lowndes's arguments，Locke declares that the rise of the market-price above the mint-price was not brought about by an increase in the value of silver，but by a decrease in the weight of coins.Seventy-seven clipped shillings did not weigh more than 62shillings of standard weight.Finally Locke is quite correct in emphasising that，irrespective of the loss of silver suffered by the coins in circulation，a certain rise in the market-price of silver bullion over the mint-price might occur in England，because the export of silver bullion was permitted whereas that of silver coin was prohibited (see op.cit.，pp.54-116passim).Locke takes good care to avoid the vital issue of the National Debt，just as he equally prudently refrains from discussing another ticklish economic problem，i.e.，that according to the evidence of both the exchange rate and the ratio of silver bullion to silver coin，the depreciation of the money in circulation was by no means proportional to the amount of silver it lost.We shall return to this question in its general form in the section dealing with the medium of circulation.In A discourse Concerning Coining the New Money Lighter，in Answer to Mr.Locke's Considerations ，London，1696，Nicholas Barbon vainly sought to entice Locke on to difficult ground.

2.Steuart，op.cit.，Vol.II，p.156.

3.The Querist，loc.cit .Incidentally，the section "Queries on Money"is rather witty.Among other things it contains the true observation that the development of the North American colonies "makes it plain as daylight，that gold and silver are not so necessary for the wealth of a nation，as the vulgar of all ranks imagine".

4.Steuart，op.cit.，Vol.II，pp.102-07.

5.In connection with the last commercial crisis a certain faction in England ardently praised the ideal African money after moving its location on this occasion from the coast into the interior of Barbary.It was declared that because their bars constituted an ideal measure，the Berbers had no commercial and industrial crises.Would it not have been simpler to say that commerce and industry are the conditio sine qua non for commercial and industrial crises？

6.The Currency Question，the Gemini Letters ，London，1844，pp.266-72passim.

7.John Gray，The Social System.A Treatise on the Principle of Exchange ，Edinburgh，1831.Cf.the same author's Lectures on the Nature and Use of Money ，Edinburgh，1848.After the February Revolution，Gray sent a memorandum to the French Provisional Government in which he explains that France did not need an "organisation of labour"but an "organisation of exchange"，the plan for which was fully worked out in the Monetary System he had invented.The worthy John had no inkling that sixteen years after the publication of The Social System ，the ingenious Proudhon would be taking out a patent for the same invention.

8.Gray，The Social System，p.63."Money should be merely a receipt，an evidence that the holder of it has either contributed a certain value to the national stock of wealth，or that he has acquired a right to the said value from some one who has contributed to it."9."An estimated value being previously put upon produce，let it be lodged in a bank，and drawn out again whenever it is required，merely stipulating，by common consent，that he who lodges any kind of property in the National Bank，may take out of it an equal value of whatever it may contain，instead of being obliged to draw out the self-same thing that he put in."Op.cit.，pp.67-68.

10."The business of every nation ought to be conducted on a national capital"(John Gray，The Social System ，p.171).

11.

"The land to be transformed into national property"(op.cit.，p.298.)12.See，e.g.，W.Thompson，"An Inquiry into the Distribution of Wealth，London，1824；Bray，Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy，Leeds，1839.13.

Alfred Darimon，De la réforme des banques，Paris，1856，can be regarded as a compendium of this melodramatic monetary theory.

Theories of the Medium of Circulation and of Money Karl Marx's A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMYC.Theories of the Medium of Circulation and of Money Just as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries，when modern bourgeois society was in its infancy，nations and princes were driven by a general desire for money to embark on crusades to distant lands in quest of the golden grail，so the first interpreters of the modern world，the originators of the Monetary System --the Mercantile System is merely a variant of it --declared that gold and silver，i.e.，money，alone constitutes wealth.