This description of money doesn't sound right, to me? Personally, I subscribe to the Graeber-Innes hypothesis: the use of precious metal coinage was a credit ri

This description of money doesn't sound right, to me? Personally, I subscribe to the Graeber-Innes hypothesis: the use of precious metal coinage was a credit risk mitigation strategy. Using gold (or whatever) was important not because of any latent value of the metal, but simply because it provided material accounting for asset backed representative monies in a distributed, robust, vaguely secure manner. I mean, I seem to remember the Mesopotamian cultures using "fiat" accounting for 3000-odd years? That's one of the theories of the development of writing: accounting.