Not much epistemic effort here: this is just an intuition that I have to model a vast and possibly charged field. I'm calling upon the powers of crowd-finding to clarify my views.
Tl;dr: is the debate in economics over the nature of money really about the definition or just over politics?
I'm currently reading "Money - an unauthorised biography" by Felix Martin. It presents what is to me a beautifully simple and elegant definition of what money is: transferable value over a liquid landscape (these precise words are mine). It also presents many cases where this simple view is contrasted by another view: money as a commodity. This opposition is not merely one of academics definitions, but has important consequences. Policy makers have adopted different points of view and have becuase of that varied very much their interventions.
I've never been much interested in the field, but this book sparked my curiosity, so I'm starting to look around and I'm surprised to discover that this debate is still alive and well in the 21st century.
Basically what I've glanced is that there is this Keynesian school of thougth that posits that yes, money is transferable debts, and since money is merely a technology that expresses an agreement, you should intervente in the matter of economics, especially by printing money when this is needed.
Then there's an opposite view (does it have a name?) that says that no, money is a commodity and for this reason it must be treated as such: it's creation is to be carefully controlled by the market and it's value tied only to the value of an underlying tradeable asset.
I think my uncertainty shows how little I know about this field, so apply Crocker's rule at will. Is this a not completely inaccurate model of the debate?
If it is so, my second question: is this a debate over substance or over politics?
If I think that money is transferable debts, surely I can recognize the merit of intervention but also understand that a liberal use of said tool might breed a disaster.
If I think that money is a standard commodity, can I manipulate which commodity it is exactly tied to to increase the availability of money in times of need?
Am I talking nonsense for some technical reason? Am I missing something big? Is economics the mind-killer too?
Elucidate me!
Yes it is isn't it. It is also widely criticized. What Nash explains is that Keynesianism is simply an advance opaque form of bolshevik communism. It's an excuse to sell the public bad money under the label "good" money". Nash explains that we can view it as it has a missing axiom:
The axiom is effectively that our currency system should be arranged for a different result:
People (these days) are trying to postulate and theorize about how we can idealize our money, or in other words, how can we design the perfect money. Nash (and Hayek) points out that perfect money is FREE from such design, and so its actually an logical absurd pursuit.
This is what Keynesians are doing with the argument "There is no better way but clear and admitted sanity".
Nash proposes a money: " …intrinsically free of “inflationary decadence”..a true “gold standard”, but the proposed basis for that was not the proposal of a linkage to gold"
But it is not by design per se.
He says everyone is Keynesians even post-Keynesians, can we understand that?
Also James Miller. I got in trouble from the community for saying that its silly that a game theory professor could never have heard of 20 years of Nash's works, especially his lifes passion, that is wholly and perfectly related to game theory. Do you think thats wrong of me to suggest?
Maybe I've missed something, but why should we all agree that stability of value is a the most important feature of money? I could imagine a number of different views (for example, deflationary money is useful if you want to incentivize savings, and inflationary money is useful to incentivize spending).