Money, money circulation and credit
Шрифт:
Between money as a standard of value and money as a standard of prices the substantial differences exist. Money as a standard of value relates to all the other goods, it appears spontaneously, changes in accordance with the quantity of social labor spent on money commodity production. Money as a standard of prices is specified by the State and acts as fixed weighted quantity of metal changing with the cost of this metal.
Initially the weight content of the monetary unit coincided with the standard of prices what reflected in the names of some monetary units. Thus in past the English pounds sterling really and truly weighted one pound of silver. During the gold circulation the standard of prices supposed the monetary unit determination equal to the definite quantity of gold. In the USA in 1900 one dollar was equal to 1.50463 g. of pure gold but during the following devaluations of dollar the content of gold fell triply: in 1934 to 0.889 g., in December of 1971 to 0.818 g. and in February of1973 to 0.737 g. In the course of historical development the standard of prices separated from the weight content of monetary unit.
The Jamaican currency system introduced in 1976 till 1978 canceled an official price on gold and the gold parities as a result of which the official standard of prices became irrelevant. Gold was drove out of circulation by inconvertible credit money. At present time the official standard of prices changed on actual which forms spontaneously in the process of market exchange.
During the inconvertible credit money circulation the price confirms in the goods directly but not in gold. That’s why the price is the form of appearance of exchange ratio of the good to all the goods but not to the yellow metal specifically.
At present time paper money performs the function of standard of value without any gold guarantee but not less successfully then precious metals.
Money as an instrument of circulation. Money was born by trade and appeared as a technical mean which facilitates the goods’ exchange. Because without money only the direct exchange could be done when each of partner has a required good for another partner. But even there will be three people they can fail the deal if won’t use money. In other words money facilitate greatly the transition (or, as economists say, «circulation») of goods between the trade participants. Money serves as a universal language which helps sellers and buyers to come to agreement.
By the way that’s exactly why gold and silver became the main money commodities which contained the basis of the World’s leading countries’ monetary systems till the middle of the last century. These precious metals were admitted by the majority of nations all over the World as the most recognized monetary language which facilitated greatly as internal and international trade.
During the direct commodity exchange (G-G – good for good) the purchase and sale happened simultaneously in one place without any gaps. The commodity circulation (G1-M-G2) consists of two independent actions separated in time and place. Money plays the role of representative which allows to overpass the temporal and spatial gaps and to provide continuous process flow.
To money peculiarities as a mean of circulation first of all we can include the real money appearance in circulation and its evanescence in exchange. In this connection the token money – paper and credit – can perform the velocity function. Here the parallel countermotion of money and goods happens when money is tied to the goods movement. Historically this function generated token (paper) money.
The function of means of hoarding and savings. Money being the universal equivalent i.e. providing its owner the receipt of any good becomes a creation of social wealth. People feel an aspiration to save and reserve money. During the metal circulation this money function played the role of spontaneous regulator of the money turnover – spare money went to treasures and money shortage was filling up by them.
In the conditions of widened commodity reproduction the accumulation (saving and storing) of temporarily disposable monetary resources is a necessary condition of the capital turnover. The creation of money reserves flattens the inequalities and peculiarities of economic life. On a nationwide scale the gold reserve stock creation was required. In accordance with a demonetization of gold the amount of gold hoard gives evidence of the State’s richness and provides trust of residents and nonresidents to the national monetary unit.
Money can perform this function because it has «a perfect liquid- ity» of a nominal value.
Of course there is no use to save money in the countries with growing inflation because it devalues too fast. In consequence it looses its force of attraction in spite of high liquidity. If every day we can buy the lesser quantity of goods on dollar, ruble or tenge people wouldn’t like to save the value too long in a monetary form. There are known cases when in the conditions of hyperinflation the workers claim not for the monthly wages but for daily in order to spend their money before the prices will grow on the next day.
In those countries where the hyperinflation exists the national currency could be almost denied as a mean of hoarding and as a standard of value. In such circumstances an interesting situation appears: the national monetary units perform the functions of circulation and standard of prices but as a mean of hoarding the more stable foreign currency is used bought by the monetary assets holders.
The representative function interweaves and interlinks directly with the function of money as a mean of payment – payment of taxes, receipt and reimbursement of credit, payment of salaries, allowances, payment for utility services. Whereby a money circulation is not accompanied by a simultaneous goods transfer.
Initially this function was performed by the gold money and then by paper and credit. Historically the function of a mean of payment generated the credit money – a kind of token money. Money as a mean of payment has a specific scheme of transfer (G-UPI-G) which is not linked with the goods’ countermotion, i.e. money – urgent proof of indebtedness – money.
According to this scheme in the conditions of developed goods production the goods’ owners are linked to each other and a payment link opening will cause a range of payment failures: one tenge of the State debt will result 5-6 tenge of the other nonpayments.
In the conditions of a legal basis imperfection and an inflation growth in the middle of 90th of the last century the crisis of nonpayments accrued. Thus in Kazakhstan in the beginning of 1995 the nonpayments amounted 368.2 billion tenge, in 1996 – 533.9 billion, in 1998 – 637.9 billion. From 1998 some decrease occurred – 518.9 billion tenge and on 01.12.2002 – 148.2 billion tenge what was the result of the economic situation stabilization.
The usage of money as a mean of payment was described in detail in «The Russian Truth» (the XIth century): «Kunas are needed for payment of viras (penalties), debts and rezas (percents), obrok and render (for plough – ral and yard – smoke)». As the industrial society developed a mean of payment increasingly substituted a mean of circulation.