Value-less Money

Money has lost its practical value.

I will not relate what will probably already be an obvious history, but money has become an abstract quantity. It was tied to various values, most notably the gold standard. The end of the gold standard and the beginning of fluctuating, relative currencies meant that money became valued just for its own sake.

I rush through this history so that I can relate a thought that I had a few hours ago. I was in a shop and mentally going through my usual routine. I always try to use exact change when paying for something or at least make an effort to get as close to that as possible. More than this, I have begun playing a mental game whereby I attempt to get rid of my least valuable coins. Even if I get change back, getting rid of the smaller coins gives me a small sense of satisfaction.

It seems that I want smaller physical amounts of money that are worth more value. This is most obvious when I try to use extra change in order to get a note back from a cashier. These pieces of paper are physically worth less than the metal coins that I exchanged for them. Not only has money become a relative value, it has inverted our normal sense of value. We usually think of metal as more valuable than paper but when this metal and paper is money the opposite is true.

Electronic money is certainly the next case in this unusual inversion.

-The English Student