§ 1. Standard-commodity money. § 2. Alternative uses of the money-good.
§ 3. Money as a valuable tool. § 4. Relative importance of
money. § 5. Concept of the individual monetary demand. § 6. Concept
of the community's monetary demand. § 7. The money-material in
its commodity uses. § 8. The general level of prices. § 9. Effect of
increasing gold production. § 10. The quantity theory of money. § 11.
Interpretation of the quantity theory. § 12. Practical application of
the quantity theory.


§ 1. #Standard-commodity money#. The actual money in use in almost
every country to-day consists of a wide and confusing variety: gold,
silver, nickel, copper, paper in various forms, issued by various
authorities under various conditions as to amount and as to
seigniorage. But among all the kinds, in each country some one kind
is found standing preëminent and in a peculiar position, as the
_standard_ money to which the value of all the other kinds of money is
in some manner adjusted. Usually this standard money is composed of
a material (gold or silver) which is a commodity; but there are
many examples of paper money being for the time the standard. The
difficulties of the money problem must be attacked at the point
of standard-commodity money, where it is nearest to ordinary value
problems and is less complicated than when the various other kinds of
money and the various money substitutes are included.

We mean by standard money that kind, no matter what its form, which
serves in any country as the unit in which the value of other kinds of
money is expressed. The standard usually is a quantity of metal of a
certain weight and fineness, which, as a commodity, has a value also
in industrial uses. Coins of this standard are called full, or real,