What is "Legal Tender"

Posted by $ MikeMarotta 7 years, 2 months ago to Government
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In truth, objective investigation demonstrates that the government has the right, the need, and the obligation to define and create legal tender.

All governments create a plethora of medals, medallions, certificates, promises, and warrants that may be valuable, negotiable, even fungible, but are not recognized in courts of law as legal tender.

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  • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
    The purpose of government is to protect individual rights. The purpose of a civil court system is to adjudicate disputes on the basis of the individual rights of each participant, enforcing the terms of the contract whenever possible. If it is not possible, a judge and/or jury can order an equitable settlement that substitutes an alternative value for the value promised in the contract.

    None of the above requires the establishment or enforcement of “legal tender” laws. Your article lays out the historical background of money, but does not make the case that defining and creating legal tender is a necessary or proper function of government.

    Here is your key paragraph: “According to Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, and in line with much else on the libertarian right wing of American politics, the proper functions of government include operating courts of law. It is for the courts that the legislature defines “legal tender.” If the legislature did not define legal tender, there would be no way to know when a debt has been discharged, or when payment has been made.

    I don’t think that last sentence can be supported. Any serious contract that creates a debt will include the goods and/or services that, if and when delivered, will constitute payment and discharge of that debt. Any question before the court will then become a question of fact: did the debtor fulfill his obligation to the creditor, as specified in the contract? The concept of legal tender doesn’t enter the picture – whatever the debtor pays the creditor is “legal tender”, provided that the medium of payment is one specified in the contract.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      See my reply below:
      https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

      Even if we accept the benefits of private arbitration, the government still must define which of its many valuable "coins" and "paper" are legal tender and which are not.
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
        See my response to your reply below:
        https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
        "Legal tender" is in the same category as "public schools" and the "military draft" - an illegitimate imposition of government authority that has no place in a free society.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
          Do you know that the first coins of the United States had no mark of value?
          https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
          The problem with a mark of value - known as early as from French coins of the 1500s - that the coin can be debased, but carry the same mark of value. Without any mark of value, though, how do you know legal tender, except by legal definition?
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
            Why should I know or care what the government defines as "legal tender", unless they impose their definition on me by forcing me to accept it? The whole concept of legal tender is unnecessary in a free economy. Governments should not be minting coins or issuing paper money at all.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
              You have a strong point there and one that radical Republicans of the Senate in 1800 and 1802 attempted to carry forward. However, the fact is that like any economic actor - you, me, Disney World - the government can create its own monetary media for paying its own employees, buying materials, etc. And when the government borrows money, it can create promissory notes that it will accept back in payment for taxes and duties and other goods and services.
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              • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
                I agree, and the government can do these things without the imposition of "legal tender" laws, except for defining what the government itself is willing to accept in payment.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      What if I cannot perform under the contract? I broke a leg, my factory burned down, whatever... See above to Lucky. In an advanced society, it is a known fact that businesses competitors even, buy and sell with each other. Hardly anything is a "finished good" as everything can be upgraded or repurposed. I make cabinets. You make TVs. We trade and then enhance to create competing "entertainment units." If I cannot meet the terms, but want to make it good, you do not want more TVs, not your own and probably not a competitor's. What satisfies? Legal tender.

      So, we have escape clauses. If I cannot give you cabinets, you will take one ounce of silver for each one, just say. That's fine for most cases. But most cases do not end up in court, as Wolf Devoon pointed out here in the Gulch https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post... "The Constitution of Government in Galt's Gulch." Of necessity, courts deal with exceptions.
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
        Re: “What if I cannot perform under the contract?” As I said above, courts are tasked with enforcing the terms of a contract whenever possible. If it is not possible, a judge and/or jury can order an equitable settlement that substitutes an alternative value for the value promised in the contract.

        If the debtor goes broke, then bankruptcy laws apply. The debtor’s assets are divided among the creditors. This still doesn’t require legal tender laws.

        It’s true that barter will not work on a large scale in a modern economy. There will be demand for money as a medium of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. This demand can be met within the free market (in Atlas Shrugged it was met using gold and silver coins minted by a private banker). At any given time there will be one or a few preferred forms of money within a given society. The type of monetary payment can be spelled out for each contract – it often is today. A government-imposed “legal tender” standard is neither necessary nor desirable in an Objectivist society.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
          I agree in the main with your perspective on this. I have worked for several multi-national corporations. The ones I know of denominate their books in US Dollars, even though they are headquartered elsewhere. Even OPEC oil is denominated in US Dollars.

          The US Constitution empowers Congress to define weights and measures. But why? Why should the government impose some arbitrary choice? For one reply, when the legislature defines a standard - whether for money or time - then that is known for suits at law in court.

          ITOH, it is true that as late as the 1830s many merchants along the Eastern Seaboard kept their books in pounds-shillings-pence. So, in a pure free market, all manner of alternatives might be active and be used to mutual benefit. Nonetheless, if "legal tender" is defined in law, then everyone can rely on an objective standard.
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
            Re: "Nonetheless, if "legal tender" is defined in law, then everyone can rely on an objective standard." The U.S. dollar is legal tender by law. However, it is anything but an objective standard.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
              The word "objective" has objective meaning. The fact that the value of the dollar is public information from several sources makes its value objective. The best analogy that I can give is Ayn Rand's explanation that Roman Law was objective. (It was not Objectivist.) Roman Law was not concerned with individual rights as we understand them, but Roman Law was publicly posted for all to know, and it was uniformly enforced. Thus, it was objective.

              You can look up the Treasury debt, the cross-currency index futures, the price of Brent Crude Oil, or anything else you want. We know what a dollar is worth, even as the value changes with market conditions in many markets all the time.
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              • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
                What the dollar will buy at any given instant is public knowledge and is objective. The dollar itself is not, unless you accept as objective the definition that “the dollar is something the government can create in any quantity it chooses and force the public to accept as money.” In many cases the dollar is not even suitable for legal proceedings, which is why inflation adjustments are often included in contracts. A lawsuit can take years to resolve, by which time the dollar will likely have a very different purchasing power than it had when the lawsuit commenced.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 2 months ago
    I take away from this that Mike doesn't like DB.

    The link doesn't persuade me. The arguments do not follow a logical flow. At one point the arguement is presented from another work that money did not evolve from barter. It evolved from gift exchange as a measure of credit. Ok, maybe, but since money evolved independently in many different places and times, I doubt each case is credit and not trade. Separately, it is irrelevant to the assertion.

    I do not object to the government offering legal tender. It is convenient, like having a common language, or common screw sizes. I do object to it being manipulated by the government. Clearly other alternatives should and do exist. If the government did not offer a liquid means of exchange, another agent(s) would be the windows, OSX and Linux of exchange, and it would be fine.

    Precisely how would a private means of liquid exchange cause a problem, in reality or to objectivism? Bitcoin works.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      See my general reply below: https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

      Here and now, you do have the option for "private means of liquid exchange" and private arbitration. You do not need to goto a government court and accept government legal tender. But the government does need to define what legal tender is, if only for its own courts.

      Also, you "object to it [legal tender] being manipulated by the government." That is a reality of the market. One of the advantages of tokens is that they remain permanent media for your business, even if you change the price of your goods or services. "Good for 10 cents in Trade" still lets you set your prices as prices must change over time. This is a selling point made by token manufacturers. (See here from Monarch, one of the oldest continuing token businesses:
      http://www.monarchcoin.com/support-la...
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 2 months ago
        "That is the reality of the market" means that is what it is, not what it should or could be. We certainly do not have to accept it, anymore than we have to accept government corruption.

        You are asserting the government needs to define "legal tender" for the context of the court. However, the government did not have to define physics, chemistry, DNA testing, et al for them to be used by the courts. Two individuals can define a liquid means of exchange in a contract, and the sides of this contract can be evaluated by a court.

        I do not see why we need a government definition to employ a means of liquid exchange, nor why private means for tender (liquid exchange) are not adequate.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
          Actually, the government has defined "science" for the courts. It is called the Daubert Test.

          As we have noted, you can arrange for any private contractual terms you want. But, ultimately, when you come to a government court, you accept the government definitions. As I pointed out below https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
          the first coins of the United States had no mark of value. Technically, they were indistinguishable from honorary medals. The difference, of course, is that the Eagle and the Dollar were defined in law as being legal tender, as were several foreign coins, in fact.
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          • Posted by $ Thoritsu 7 years, 2 months ago
            Ok, this is getting pedantic. Let's use an example. Two persons go to court to argue rent was not paid. The contract says one person must provide 20 four leafed clovers a month in exchange for a heated apartment. Where where is a definition of legal tender needed?

            The Daubert Test does not define science. It sets expectations for expert testimony.
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
            The first U.S. half cents, cents, half dollars and silver dollars all had marks of value. The half cents and cents were denominated on the reverse, the half dollar and the silver dollar on the edge. The principles and practices of existing government courts have no bearing on what their principles and practices would be in an Objectivist society.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
              You are right about the edge inscriptions. Thanks. I forgot about that. Those were for silver coins, though. The coppers were not legal tender (above small amounts) but were only a token for silver. And it remains that the gold coins did not have those edge inscriptions until 1838.

              Thus, the government needed to define which of its medals it would accept back for taxes, duties, etc.
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              • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
                But it was not necessary for the government to create coins in order to conduct business. It could simply have used whatever monetary instruments the public had chosen as its preferred medium of exchange in a free market.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 7 years, 2 months ago
    "All governments create a plethora of medals, medallions, certificates, promises, and warrants that may be valuable, negotiable, even fungible, but are not recognized in courts of law as legal tender. "

    Really? Show me how that follows from Natural Rights. The only thing that you give up when in a proper government is delayed retaliatory force according to Rand and Locke. When the government forces you to accept payment in legal tender, which you are forced to take in settlement of lawsuit.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      You are forced to appear in court in the first place. You can be compelled to answer criminal charges. If you fail to appear for a suit in civil law, you suffer a summary judgment against you. You can be forced to appear as a witness. Courts are all about force of law.

      When you enter a contract, you agree to some form of arbitration, often explicitly, but implicitly, of course, by living in society.

      "Natural rights" (so-called) do not exist "in nature." Alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe had no need of rights. But when you live in society, you need rights. Ayn Rand in particular was explicit on that point.

      Those rights are protected by courts of law that resolve disputes. You can goto private arbitration, if you contracted for that. If you goto the government courts, then you accept the government's definitions of things like "legal tender" and "chattels" and "appurtenances" and so on. That is why governments must differentiate "legal tender" from all of the other valuable things that they create such as military decorations and grants of title.
      (My general reply on that is below: ttps://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts/ae4436... )
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
        In a free society government would not define "legal tender" at all, and government courts would not uphold such a concept.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
          As Ayn Rand pointed out, the government is the servant of the people, but it is not the unpaid servant. ("Government Financing in a Free Society", Virtue of Selfishness, first edition, hard cover, page 161.) So, which of the medals and papers issued by the government will it accept back in payment for protection and adjudication? Your military medals and Congressional awards might be gold and silver, but the government need not accept them back -- unless of course, you are trying to say something else entirely.

          Once "legal tender" is defined in law, the government courts will adhere to that definition. You can pick some other court, even today. (It is a bone of contention among progressives that you can sign away your right to a government court in a civil suit.) But if you goto a government court, you accept the government's rules.
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
            It's true that if you goto a government court, you accept the government's rules. But this is as true in Soviet-era Russia as it would be in a free society. That statement says nothing about what proper government rules would be and should be in an Objectivist court. And it does not make the case that "legal tender" should be defined by law in the first place, except in the restricted sense of what the government is willing to pay out and accept for its own transactions with the public.
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    • Posted by CircuitGuy 7 years, 2 months ago
      " When the government forces you to accept payment in legal tender, which you are forced to take in settlement of lawsuit."
      Suppose I make a deal to provide software in exchange 10 oz of gold. I pay someone 1oz a week to help me with. The client is says the software doesn't meet spec and says he will give me 5 oz. I say all it meets the original spec and want the full 10 oz. If we go to court and I get a judgment, it will be in USD. If I'm unhappy with USD, I could always just buy gold. If I'm worried about gold going up (or USD depreciating against the USD) during litigation and collection, I could just buy a derivative to hedge against that. If the court awards me a judgment, what do I care what form it is?
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
        Buying a derivative costs money and time, plus there is counterparty risk. Buying gold with dollars costs time plus the spread between bid and ask. That’s why you should care whether the court awards you dollars or gold.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      Your reply was not in the form of sentences, and yet you received 4 Up Votes. It is obvious by inspection that other readers are responding emotionally to the tone of your reply. If I understand what you are trying to say, you want me to prove that objective law follows from natural rights because you do not understand that it must. I am not sure that it must.

      Dr. Leonard Peikoff pointed out that many students of Objectivism want to derive epistemology from metaphysics. That cannot be done, he said, because they are intertwined. So, too, here, are the proper functions of government tightly bound to those individual (natural) rights. One does not "follow" from the other.

      Ayn Rand offered ancient Rome as an example of objective law. Roman law was not concerned with individual rights, either predominately or primarily, but is was objective. The law was posted for all to see and it was uniformly administered.

      So, your call for perfection of an objectivist government is not relevant here. The fact is that governments do define "legal tender" and it is a benefit enjoyed by parties at suits of law in court.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 7 years, 2 months ago
    I think the real question is whether or not government can or should be the ultimate arbiter of economic contracts. I agree that all contracts by their very nature require three parties: the two contracting parties and a third appeal/enforcement party. Because government usually enforces social laws, many have also chosen to delegate to the government the enforcement of economic contracts as well whether as a matter of efficiency or as a matter of societal will. It is also convenient because in unusual cases an economic contract dispute can turn into a criminal matter. For these reasons, I think there is a substantial argument to be made for governmental involvement in contract dispute resolution.

    That being said, the Founders of the United States initially implemented no central currency except for governmental purposes. They were pretty much constrained by the needs to fund the startup of the country to take on debt and pledge against that debt through the creation of some form of legal tender, but that tender was to fund government operations only - it wasn't used by the general populace, who had their own private banking system. That private system worked well and prevailed for nearly 150 years until the formation of the Federal Reserve. Yes, there were certainly problems with individual banks and they would rise and fail just like many businesses, but I see that as a positive thing because it encourages competition. It also made it impossible for the government to borrow too much because they couldn't control their own debt. All that changed in 1918. Now we have a system where the government controls the money supply and has the power to devalue money simply by spending money and then mandating the rates of interest on that borrowed money - not to mention their profligate printing of new notes.

    If one compares the outcomes of a central banking system with a diversified, private banking system, I think it is pretty easy to see that if one is going to advocate for a central banking system, one must also mandate a standard for its backing (i.e. precious metals) or the government will destroy its own people through currency manipulation and inflation. Those very same checks and balances are inherent in a private banking system.
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    • Posted by dbhalling 7 years, 2 months ago
      Good points


      "They were pretty much constrained by the needs to fund the startup of the country to take on debt and pledge against that debt through the creation of some form of legal tender."

      Legal Tender is defined as Legal tender is any official medium of payment recognized by law that can be used to extinguish a public or private debt, or meet a financial obligation.

      Read more: Legal Tender Definition | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/l...
      Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook

      The Founders did not create a legal tender by that definition. They did create bank notes, although they could have raised bonds for species or bank notes that already existed.
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      • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
        You are wrong about that, as I noted below
        https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
        The US Eagle ten dollar coin and the US silver Dollar itself had no mark of value. Their value was defined in law as legal tender, as were several foreign coins, principally the Spanish Milled Dollar. That "dollar" of course said 8R, eight reales, not one dollar. Its value was defined in law as legal tender for one dollar.
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        • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
          Each early U.S. silver dollar did have a mark of value on its edge, not that this fact has anything to do with whether defining "legal tender" is a legitimate function of government.
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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 7 years, 2 months ago
    aside from everything previously said

    Legal tender could be said to be ANYTHING a group of people have decided to accept as a form of currency for translations. That said shells, stones, petrified feces can all be legal tender if accepted as such by a body of people and/or its representative government (including the judiciary).
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  • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 2 months ago
    "Once again, this time on the Galt’s Gulch Online message board, my conservative comrades displayed a disappointing though predictable ignorance about money. For people who claim to honor the bourgeois virtues of trade and commerce, they collectively guard a treasury of incomplete, incorrect, erroneous, and falsified assertions. In truth, objective investigation demonstrates that the government has the right, the need, and the obligation to define and create legal tender." Mike Marotta.

    Your Insults and assumptions are of no use in examining your question What is legal tender?

    In your ramble you state " for tens of thousands of years including two ice ages from about
    35,000 YA to 10,000 YA , strangers became friends by exchanging gifts" (pure speculation and of no value to the Question)

    "In fact, very little trade is “cash on the barrel head.” It never has been." This is no fact.
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  • Posted by Dobrien 7 years, 2 months ago
    Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," which states: "United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues."

    This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      Yes. Everyone knows that. You cut and pasted from the US Treasury website FAQ. It came up in the "Which is worse..." debate. There dbhalling said that despite what the US Treasury says on its website, the actual law is the rule that the courts follow. He did not point out there, and I point out here, that the error in the Treasury's statement is that it does not identify the difference between "payment" and "debt." Payment is immediate. Debt is a contract for future payment.

      Most of trade and commerce has always been over distances of space and time. We just see retail purchases most easily from our daily lives. But those goods and services had to get to us. We are what retailers call "ultimate consumers." In fact, we are not that, either. When you buy a lawn mower, you have made a capital purchase for the maintenance of your home, which is your place of business. The modern economists segregate "businesses" from "households" from "government" but if they are convenient, those are arbitrary. All households are businesses. And the vast bulk of things we find, make, and do, are delivered in large quantities on credit via debt across space and time.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 7 years, 2 months ago
    yet the source of common law has come from the private courts of England...as govt law and courts of that time were corrupt and unjust...
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  • Posted by Lucky 7 years, 2 months ago
    This is an informative article as expected from MM.
    There is quite a lot I do not know about money but I am unconvinced by the argument for the need for gov to define legal tender.

    When is a debt discharged?
    When the terms of the contract have been satisfied. What else?
    Should satisfaction be in dispute, then the gov via the courts make a ruling.
    The concept of legal tender is not needed to answer the question.

    Now the article mentions the case of a law ordering a quantity of silver to be paid to the victim of a defined assault.
    Yes, a legit role for government in dissuading and punishing crime.
    This does not create legal tender with silver, it only sets some numerical equivalence between the crime and the redress.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      I agree that the law does not need to be made by the legislature. It can be made in the courts. Bench-made Law is the British system. That is why precedent is so important in rulings, especially in appeals, and most especially in Constitutional law. That kind of society would have very broad legislation interpreted by the courts in each case. I think that most people here would not recommend that. The consensus on the right is that "activist courts" are a danger to the Republic.

      I agree, also, contra dbhalling in "Which is worse..." that under objective law in a libertarian society, all contracts would be for deliverables. "Legal tender" might not exist at all. When I "buy" a refrigerator for 2 oz of gold, all I have done is "sell" 2 oz of gold for a "common currency" called "refrigerators."

      Every contract would be barter and each would have to specify all of the alternatives should performance fail. As in the example, what if my factory burns down before I can deliver the goods you paid for? I have to pay you back in whatever you paid with, apples, silver, whatever. Seems fair... Unless apples are out of season. What if I were buying your widgets with my gadgets, as would be easy in an advanced industrial society? The only way to pay you back for your loss is to give you more of what you have, not what you want.

      Money solves that problem. So, the law (courts or legislature or executive) declare what is legal tender.
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
        Re: “Money solves that problem. So, the law (courts or legislature or executive) declare what is legal tender.” This is not a syllogism. The second sentence does not follow from the first. All the functions of money can be supplied in a free market, and would be in an Objectivist society. Through a process of competition a single type of money (or a few at most) would become the most widely accepted, and would be the monetary standard for most contracts. Competitive pressure would keep that money honest. No “legal tender” necessary.
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        • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
          See below https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
          The first American coins had no mark of value.
          What made them "legal tender" but for the legal declaration of them being that?
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          • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
            See my reply below https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
            What is your point? The fact that there are legal tender laws doesn't demonstrate that such laws are morally legitimate, any more than the existence of government schools proves that education is a proper function of government.
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            • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
              The government must define which of its medals and papers it will accept for taxes, duties, etc. Andrew Jackson's "Specie Circular" required gold and silver coin for the purchase of federal land. You could not hand back a military medal. ... because if you did, that would mean something totally different.
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              • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
                There is no Objectivist principle that government must create the medium of exchange that it accepts for its legitimate transactions. In a free economy there would likely be one or a few types of readily accepted private monetary instruments, and the government could simply use these.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
      The roots of "crime" (so-called) are in the violations of relationships between individuals. Harming someone created an obligation to that person. It was not a violation of what became known as "the king's peace" about 3000 years later. The tendrils of that can be seen in the "Draconian laws" of Athens.

      Drakon ("dragon") was not his real birth name, but what they called him after he became the Tyrant of Athens. He made murder an offense against the state, rather than just a private affair between two parties or two families.

      Note that in the Code of Ur-Nammu the payment is to the offended individual, not to the king or the temple. It is not "punishment" per se, but restoration. In the Code of Dracon, the punishment for murder was death. The victim was not "restored" except perhaps by closure.
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  • Posted by $ 7 years, 2 months ago
    A point perhaps not made strongly enough in the original post is that the government - like any economic entity - creates many kinds of "coins" and "paper obligations." The OP showed the large gold medal awarded to Charles Lindbergh, a Purple Heart, and a deed for land. The OP image is of a Nobel Prize, which is funded by a foundation and awarded by the King of Sweden. They are not money. As valuable as they are, they are not legal tender.

    Governments define "legal tender" in order to differentiate their circulating monetary media from all of the similar objects that they create.

    Once the government defines legal tender in this way, it become the definition that the courts look to.

    You can avoid government courts with arbitration. In fact, it is a complaint from some progressives that many contracts (credit cards, automobile loans) include clauses that take away your right to a court trial and allow only arbitration.

    But in government courts, the government definitions are the ones operative.
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    • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 2 months ago
      You are conflating what governments do with what governments should do and would do in an Objectivist society. For example:

      “Governments define ‘legal tender’ in order to differentiate their circulating monetary media from all of the similar objects that they create.” You have not established that governments have the right to create “circulating monetary media” – there are plenty of strong arguments based on Objectivist principles that say they don’t, and plenty of real-world demonstrations of why they shouldn’t.

      “Once the government defines legal tender in this way, it become the definition that the courts look to.” Just because the courts (which are part of the government) uphold illegitimate assertions of authority by the executive or legislative branches doesn’t mean that, under Objectivist principles, such assertions of authority become proper government functions.

      Your entire argument rests on your assertion that “the government has the right, the need, and the obligation to define and create legal tender.” As I have detailed elsewhere in this discussion, under Objectivist principles it has no such right, need or obligation.
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  • Posted by Donald-Brian-Lehoux 7 years, 2 months ago
    Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power “To coin Money,” but nowhere is the word “money” defined in the Constitution. and the federal reserve is NOT PART OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. Sect. 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; DOE GOLD AND SILVER PERIOD , FULL STOP!!
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