Why have gold, silver, and copper/bronze typically been used as currency of some sort?

Why have gold, silver, and copper/bronze typically been used as currency of some sort?

When I was still majoring in chemistry, the reason they gave was because they didn't rust. But I'd wager it goes beyond that.

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They don't rust

They are also rare and require some value to refine.
This makes them harder for the average pleb to make their own

Raiding barbarians will take your grain and cattle, but dont need your metals

At this very moment, electronic proxies for pointlessly expended energy are becoming viable currencies, so that should tell you something about the nature of money.

it was the densest substance they knew of thus impossible to forge

Heavy.
Pretty.
Difficult to manufacture.

These use values made them a general store of labour.

For more details read Graeber on Debt.

its called intrinsic value

it also makes the currency as such small units of precious metals, guaranteed by standards and laws and whichever regulations, and that makes them acceptable even in markets that dont actualy use ''money'' at that time, fur was also currency, and salt was used as currency for thousands of years, when the romans would pay up a larger quantity of gold dinars to some bordering people, it wasnt uncommon that they would just smelt the money and make things they can actualy claim as valuble like jewelry or ritual objects

but it goes beyond that.

>silver
>copper
>don't rust

And this was a chemistry class you say?

They tarnish, which is self-limiting.

To add to this user's comment; it wasn't uncommon for merchants to weigh rather than count coins in a business transaction. This was because rulers in times of need minted diluted coinages.

Tarnishing isn't rusting you illiterate cock

>its called intrinsic value

Gold has value in modern manufacturing but none in ancient times, specie are the very defintion of something without intrinsic value that is bartered because of ASSIGNED value.

They are pretty. Simple as that.

Its why people tolerate the artificial inflation of diamonds

Shiny, Non-rustable, heavy, rare.

Many economists would argue that exchange gave it value. Ergo, the very fact it was exchanged at all for things, made its value consequent on the relations of those other things to other things. As those other things rose in value to other things, they would rise in respect to Gold too, which is also put at parity with all other goods traded for Gold. Ergo, the good in questions costs more Gold, because everything else which stayed still, costs the same amount of Gold.

Simple. Just because it isn't used for anything doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Don't even get me started on seignorage nigga.

>Many economists would argue that exchange gave it value.
but that's the opposite of intrinsic

Was gold really good for anything else before its electrical conductivity was discovered?

Art.

Yeah but art is valuable in of itself because like gold it lacks a practical use.

Your post is literally an explanation of what assigned value is, and why gold has this rather than intrinsic value.

That's not why gold OR art is valuable. Plenty of things lack practical uses and yet are without value, for example you.

youtube.com/watch?v=T8OefkPLlWA

Ah I see, you really need to define intrinsic value for gold. The exchange gives it additional value, but it DOES have intrinsic value.

Go read Ricardo, he defines this as a two part qualification. The item must
1. Be scarce
2. Take labor to procure it

>1. Be scarce
>2. Take labor to procure it

Neither of these gives something value of any kind, let alone intrinsic value. Read a book you dumb nigger.

I'm a plumber, I have SOME use.

Eh, your labor might have some limited value, but there is not one person on this Earth who would care if you dropped on the floor and stopped breathing, and you know it.

Yes they literally do. Give me an example of something useful that has those qualities that isn't valuable. If you cannot, then Ricardo's point is proven.

You are a moron.

nuclear waste?

Your profession has nothing to do with whether or not you are useful. In my opinion, you are certainly a useful member of society, but not everyone thinks the same way I do.

Value for people seems to be subjective, and is based on pay, which you might have a lot of if you went to study a trade.

But value of things, is based on countless purely psychological valuations of value-in-use. Which obviously may differ from the exchange value of the item in question.

Nice examples retard.
It has to be useful, retard.

Please learn to read the posts I am making, and do me a favor and read Ricardo while you are at it. Thanks.

>It has to be useful
so 3. be useful

usefulness has inherent value. wow. such insight.

>He thinks bitcoins is a viable currencies

Really? Because air has much value. And the water in a lake has much value as well, if you fish. But you pay nothing for the use of these. It must not be scarce hm? So it does not have the principle of scarcity, I believe Walras and Menger would both agree then this item is not an economic item by any definition to be analyzed, it is free from exchange-value at all.

We are talking of useful things because I foresaw stupid dilettantes coming around and trying to be contrarian naming things like nuclear waste. Yes we are, of course, talking about useful things.

Bitcoin is gay.
Ethereum all the way.