Gold Bullion or the Pound?

Can the Pound stand up to the reliability and safety of Gold Bullion...

NOWADAYS, DUE to the unstable financial market and meddling politicians, people want to have a regular source of money, but also a stable currency, Says Antonio Pancorbo of The Cobden Centre.

Where can we find good quality money? For centuries, and civilization after civilization, Gold Bullion and Gold Coins have consistently won out in the long-running contest against livestock, grain, cowrie shells, feathers, etc., to find an economic good that people can use as “money” for their trades. Something valuable and stable in its value to organise complex divisions of labour in societies. So if the Pound and the other fiat currencies want to replace gold as money for the next 3,000 years, they had better listen to what this “barbarous relic”, in Keynes’ words, has to teach them.

First of all, no rulers or brilliant minds ever had the great idea that Gold Bullion could play the role of money in society. Instead, they had to accept what people used and agreed to in their trades. In fact, rulers have always hated gold as money because of the power it has taken from them. They tried to bypass the laws of physics and chemistry and create gold from nothing, but the most they achieved was to debase their currencies, a blatant trick that has been condemned since time immemorial.

They also tried to replace gold with something of low value they could control. Something that they could give to people (or force them to accept) in exchange for their properties and labour so they could continue with their grandiose schemes, wars and white elephants. Rulers had to wait until they invented fiat money (backed only by governments’ promises to maintain its purchasing power) for their dreams to come true.

We accept fiat money and the rationale behind it. It is true to say that if central banks print paper money, an economic good devoid of any other utility (except for collectors), this fiat money releases gold from its social function as money, and becomes more available for other purposes. Jewellery, ornaments, medallions and many other beautiful things you can make with gold are, thus, more affordable. However, we accept this rationale with a serious note of caution. Behind fiat monies there are governments historically eager to indulge in public spending and irresistibly tempted to create money by simply running the central bank’s printing press.
If we compare fiat money with Gold Bullion, there are a few lessons that fiat money has already learnt from gold –namely, its physical characteristics. Fiat monies, like gold, tend to be scarce, valuable, divisible, transportable and incorruptible, which makes them as efficient means of exchange as gold.

However, physical characteristics alone were not all that made gold the most efficient means of exchange. Gold production is also limited and not manipulable. To produce this scarce, valuable, divisible, transportable and incorruptible substance it must be mined from the ground, which is a slow, expensive and risky business. In stark contrast, producing fiat money is not a slow, expensive and risky process. It is simply a political decision that only requires an accounting entry in the central bank’s books. This makes fiat currencies political creatures more than anything else, which gives them a nasty taste (except for those in with the political power). And here is where the serious lessons from gold start kicking in.

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