Does the US Dollar Exist?

Because pure gold is a rarity… What is not to get.

For example imagine if dragons were real and their eggs were a rarity. People would create a currency based off their rarity because they’re a rare resource… Gold is a rare resource, it’s harder to find than iron and all of the other metals except a few. Silver is under gold.

Same with diamonds. They’re hardest to find… And they’re also expensive as hell.

This is why the govt/banks are not allowed to just print money after money… Because it is supposed to represent how much gold/silver we have. If it didn’t people would just print their own money and everyone would be rich wouldn’t they? There would be no lining of being able to know how much there should/needs to be.

Back in ancient times people had coins, metal coins as currency. Rome and what not.

People could still print their money even when it is backed up by gold…If the government doesn’t find out about it, then they can easily get away with it.

Having money backed up by gold is just making shit worse.

If it wasn’t backed up by gold, then we could print ourselves out of national debt!

People can print it yes, but then the government/banks would be like “Oh hey, where is all this money coming from? We didn’t print it, this is how much gold/silver we have.” Then they would follow it back to the source somehow and arrest whoever is doing it.

If it wasn’t represented by gold it wouldn’t really work because it would actually be utterly valueless in my opinion. Gold/silver is the only justifiable logical reason to why we have a currency system. If we didn’t have it based on that i’d say we’d be using literal coins like ancient times or barter system.

Having money at all is making shit worse. Money regardless or “I trade you this for this!” just promotes greed. We have more than enough resources to give everyone x2 of what they need/want. But people seem to think getting more and more is a good incentive to keep people working, instead of working for advancement they’d rather work to better themselves and watch the world around them crumble until no one else is left but the ones sitting high on their thrones of gold and material pleasures/comforts.

The us mint still makes money out of gold and silver. Its just not legal tender. The irs will count em at face value during an audit though.

That is an issue of what it is that you are calling “money”. Since the question is whether it is “real”, we can assume that we are not talking about the physical properties, but rather the value; “Is the value real?”

The value called “money” has affect in society, thus the value is real.

And when you speak of unicorns, to the degree your concept had value, those unicorns were of real value. If the child believed you and acted on that belief, the unicorn gained what has been called “spiritual value” or the ability to cause inspiration or a response. Santa Claus is another typical example. You cannot argue that Santa Claus has no value in the USA, thus to the extent of that value (and “spirit”), Santa is actually real.

The easy thing to ask yourself is whether anything wold be different if you were to totally remove even the concept of the thing in question such that there wasn’t even a question. Without the concept of the unicorn, many of our conversations would have to change. Without the concept of Santa Claus, a great deal of USA economics would change.

Perhaps the question should be asked, “What part of money is real?”

Money is a promissory note (even as a bank credit). Promises are real and have significant affect as long as someone believes the promise.

Money has a good and a bad side. Most currencies in the world are not tied to the gold standards or anything substantial. Gold and other rare material things have also a good and a bad side. The less tied money is, the more catastrophic the effects are, if the trust in money has vanished. Since the end of the 18th century something like a world economic crisis has been averagely occurring every 70 years.

The Egyptian Pharaohs had the same problem. Their social and economic faith was in the Pharaoh and when he died, so did their faith. They spurred their “economy” with pyramid building, but once the pyramid was built, the economy depressed again. Today, we use wars and crises of a variety of types instead of pyramids.

Fundamentally, societies have to have a highest priority, else turn to anarchy. Most recently against wiser advise, the highest priority was accepted to be money. It worked so well merely because it was easily countable/measurable and documented.

It is no accident that “trust” is very similar to “faith” and “belief”.

Money is mostly funny! Although dollars cease to be backed by gold or silver, the trust in it is supported by the guarantee that it could buy it back.(the precious metal once it backed it). It’s an assumed reversibility of value. Less trust in the reversibility, means inflating or deflating pressures on either one.

Mosrt of this gold and silver and other rare material things are stolen from Germany (1945). When will the US respectively the Fed (!) give the whole gold (especially the whole gold of the Reichsbank - I don’t mean the Nazi gold, altough that should also not be in US or Fed ownership, but it is), silver and other rare material things back to Germany?

1. Tomorrow.
2. After the next “crash”.
3. After the peace treaty.
4. Never.

I know that this is a “tender subject”.

This is one of the main point to understand the whole issue.

We need to understand the evolution of trading from barter to the evolution of money/currency to understand why there is need for a gold standard in the first place.

Once one understands the principle behind the gold standard, then one will understand the point I am driving at towards ultimate reality.

(In more details later)

When humans first started barter trading, value was based on a direct exchange of physical goods. This is verified by empirical objectivity (assuming no one is cheating).

Later values were denominated terms of animals, i.e. pigs, cattle, goats, etc.
Following from the above, values were denominated in physical objects, such as sea-shell, precious stone and others.
Subsequently values of things were denominated in metal coins, from copper, silver and then to gold.
Note these values are accepted objectively as universal with a group based on inter-subjective consensus.

US Dollar with Gold Standard
Thus using gold standard to represent one US Dollar means it is represented by a certain weight of gold. This is an objective standard which is based on the inter-subjective consensus (implied by Law) of all American citizens and anyone who possess that US dollar. It is objective because that US Dollar can be exchanged with the specified amount of gold from the US government.

In this case there are two elements of objectivity,

1. An objective amount of gold
2. An objective value for transaction purpose.

Whatever happen to the US government, one is guaranteed that one can exchange the Dollar for gold because the gold is kept in reserve for this purpose. When exchange for gold, one can convert or use the gold for other transactions.

The philosophical point here is;
The US Dollar is objective in transactional terms and objectively real in the physical sense, i.e. real in the sense that as it is backed by an actual amount of gold.

US Dollar without Gold Standard
Without a Gold standard, there is no physical objectivity to the US Dollar as in 1 above.
However there is still an element of objectivity of the transactional value as in 2 above.
This objectivity, i.e. recognized in a way independently is based on intersubjective consensus and has no corresponding physical objectivity other than trust.

In this case, if the US government ever go bankrupt or suffer economic calamities, a holder of the US Dollar cannot exchange it for gold.

The philosophical point here is;
Without the gold standard, the US Dollar is not objectively real in the physical sense.
It is only objective in the transactional sense and this is based on trust. Once the trust is gone, it vanishes into thin air.
Without actual physical representation, the objectivity of the US Dollar is based on intersubjective consensus, because everyone who use it believe and agreed on its paper worth.
If there is no inter-subjective consensus amongst users and objectivity, then the US Dollar cannot be used at all.

Conclusion;
The US Dollar is not real in the physical sense as it is not represent by any real thing, gold in this case.
The US Dollar is objective amongst users but that is only based on intersubjective consensus based on trust and nothing else.

Note what I stated was, objectivity is ULTIMATELY intersubjectivity and not the other way round.

Whatever that is false and not a fact is not termed objective.
Therefore if someone punched you on the nose [captured by CCTV], all those (A) who were within sight deny it, then that is a lie.
Since it is false, it is not termed objective.
Therefore whatever is termed ‘objective is ultimately intersubjective’ is not applicable in this case.

Btw, in a court scenario in the absence of a CCTV and other witness, the judge and jury may [in the absence of other evidence] accept what is declared by the witnesses (A) as objective and true. In this case, conditioned upon such a situation, there is intersubjectivity.

Same of Lyons as capital of France, which is not an acceptable fact recognized by the French government. This this is false, therefore it not regarded as objective. Therefore whatever is termed ‘objective is ultimately intersubjective’ is not applicable in this case.

The Sun is 93 million miles from Earth is an objective scientific fact.
This is based on the consensus of a group of Scientist within the Scientific framework and scientific method.
It is ULTIMATELY based on the intersubjective consensus of a group of scientists and accepted by others based on faith in the scientists working within their framework.

Note Pluto was once a main planet but now a dwarf planet based on the consensus of astrophysicists and astronomers.

Note my explanation between gold standard tied to actual reserves and non-gold standard.

Let say you hold one million of US dollars.
That would by say 20 kilo of gold,
If there is a gold standard it meant that you actually and legally own 20 kilo of gold stored in Fort Knox in the USA.
In this sense, whilst the one million US dollars you are holding is merely bundles of paper, there is a physical representation of it in terms of real gold.
In this sense, your one million US dollars exists as real.

However, if the US Dollars is not tied to any gold standard and reserves,
your one million US Dollar will just be equivalent to toilet paper if anything calamitous happened to the USA and its economy.

Btw, there are many predicting an economy collapse of the US economy and buying gold instead of keeping all their assets in paper money investments.

Prism, you are still not understanding what “objective” means. There can be a total consensus concerning the Earth being flat. That does not mean that the Earth is objectively flat. What is objective is that which is independent of what ANYONE or EVERYONE thinks concerning it. Whether it is objectively true that the Earth is 93 millions miles from the Sun is something that one cannot be certain about. It is certainly not exactly 93 million miles, but it might not even be anywhere close to it. What the general consensus of scientists believe has little to do with what is objective true, whether they are right or not.

The US Dollar objectively exists only because it has objective affect. It doesn’t matter how many people believe that it does exist or believe whether it should have such affect. The fact remains that it has affect. It currently can be used in trade. And as long as it has physical affect, it objectively physically exists.

Whether the dollar’s physical existence is accompanied by physical notes (dollar bills) or by gold coin, is another issue.

As long as dollars are used in trade, they objectively exist. But the value of those dollars is subjective and can vary greatly, just as with gold. If the US economy collapsed, the dollar’s value would drop greatly and that shift in value would have very serious affect. One of the effects is that other standards would be used for trade in place of the dollar. Thus the value of the dollar is directly tied to the health of the US economy. But its objective existence is not.

Gold can be used after one economy has failed so as to trade with other peoples. But what if other people lost their interest in gold? What if the gold economy also failed, as unlikely as that is? The gold economy is no more real than the dollar economy. It is merely more stable and universal because faith in its potential as a trade medium is not dependent upon a single government’s economy or promises of trad-ability.

The value of the dollar is in its trad-ability.

If the dollar is not backed by gold, there is no guarantee it can be exchanged for gold.

In the event of uncertainty in this case, the onus is on the holder to use the dollars to buy gold at market rate or any other tangible assets that has lasting economic value.

You need to take note of the view of philosophical realism [yours as above] and philosophical anti-realism.

Note philosophical anti-realism is any view that is not philosophical realism. So don’t confuse philosophical anti-realism with typical philosophical idealism.

The central point of philosophical realism is;

Unless you can prove philosophical realism is absolutely tenable, you cannot claim the following’
“What is objective is that which is independent of what ANYONE or EVERYONE thinks concerning it.”

On the other hand, my philosophical anti-realism approach is ‘transcendental idealism’ and correspondingly is ‘empirical realism’ which are more tenable and claim that reality cannot be absolutely independent of human conditions and yet can be expressed objectively.

No, actually, unless you can prove that objectivity (your “philosophical realism”) is absolutely untenable, you cannot make the claim that you just made. And if you do prove such a thing, you have just proven that your proof is invalid.

There cannot be a logical subjective argument that objective reality doesn’t exist, else it invalidates itself.

So the solipsist’s anti-realism declares that the dollar is not real … that would surprise anyone?

My point was just to show that there is an alternative to your dogmatic views. Think what you like, I am not interested to discuss the details with you.

Well, I’m all in favor of alternatives, but I didn’t see any actual alternatives in what you have mentioned. And you calling me “dogmatic” is about like Newton calling Einstein a traditionalist.