What is good about money?

Topic: What becomes exceeding difficult without it?

Do you mean without actual money, either cash or in an externally-recognized bank account, or do you mean "what if we didn't have any way of assigning quantitative value to anything we might wish to trade", even as a system of IOUs or a general resource-usage heuristic?

Morbius writes (private):

That's conflating numerous elements, and there may be others. I'm just going to riff on my response.

• "Without actual money" -- keep in mind that there's some vagueness about what "actual money" is. There are coins and banknotes, there are accounts and balances (strictly notional, without any physical embodiment), there are credit systems (a risk-scoped extension of accounts/balances), there are IOUs and contracts (which add concepts of legal obligations beyond just the value aspect of an exchange). "Money" is potentially a lot of things.

To narrow the scope of my question: a tokenized medium of exchange with a value that's reasonable stable or predictable in at least the medium term, and widely interchangable and acceptable / accepted.

Morbius continues (private):

Flipping this around, what happens if you start removing properties of money from the notion of exchange:

• Remove the concept of a commonly-defined value (market value) of goods or services. What's the basis of exchange? How does efficiency of commerce -- the time to transact a given exchange -- respond? Note that fixed "price tag" retail was an invention of 19th century New York department stores which offered "no-haggle" sales, for efficiency, effectively. I'll note that this is a market and not a strictly monetary function, but it's one you've highlighted above.
• Remove the concept of a universally (or widely) accepted medium. Now any transaction must begin with (or include) a step in which the medium of exchange must be agreed upon. Including its notional value.
• Remove the notion of fungibility. If given coin or banknote is not equal in value to any other, then each token must be individually (or collectively) assessed.
• Remove the notion of money as having any commonly-agreed-on or stable-in-time value. Now any exchange must include an assessment of "what is this worth to me vs. you", or "what will this be worth next week/month/year", especially for recurring services.

Morbius continues (private):

Of Jevons's list, my the principle changes I'd make are:

1. "Utility" is really a proxy for trust, and the greater the trust in the institution of money, the lower the requirement for utility of monetary tokens (coins, banknotes, credit systems, etc.) themselves.

2. The combination of other factors result in the universality of acceptance of money. And again, whatever is most universally acceptable is extraordinarily likely to be found serving as money. Cigarettes, cattle hides, beaver pelts, tobacco leaves, grain, etc.

3. Some sort of social or legal endorsement of exchange is strongly likely. Money need not be government-issued or backed, but within a region with a functional, effective, and trusted government, whatever does have official backing is likely to be most widely accepted and used in trade.

4. There's almost always some form of contract law surrounding exchange. This may be formal or informal, legislative or common law (that is, based on court precedent). But it regularises the obligations and rights in exchange and payment. Again, if you have functional institutions, the all the more so.