Further, as we shall see when we come to the analysis of credit, one chief function of modern credit is to increase the saleability of goods, and to enable men to use the value of their goods in effecting exchanges without actually alienating their property in the goods. It seems to me that the drift of modern systems of exchange is toward closing up the gap between money and goods, in respect of saleability, rather than to widen it.[460] But this is to anticipate later discussion.
It is not necessary, in answering our second question, as to the reasons why gold and silver have become the standard money of the world, to go far in the study of primitive moneys. Wheat has almost never been money. The value of wheat sinks rapidly with increase in supply, and is very unstable. Wheat meets some other tests that fit it for money, as easy divisibility, ease in standardization, and even has some degree of durability, though subject to deterioration and waste with keeping, and involving expense in keeping. Carlile and Ridgeway think that wheat was used to some extent among the Greeks in Southern Italy as money, at one time.[461] But this was possible because there was a regular export trade in wheat—the same thing that made tobacco available as money in Virginia. In general, however, commodities which minister to easily satiable wants are ill-adapted for money. And that is especially true of current stocks of goods currently consumed.
The accumulation of money, moreover, implies a stage of human development where the accumulation of capital is possible. It implies foresight, the suppression of present wants in the interest of future wants, and almost always money has been a commodity well suited to serve as provision against future contingencies. Cattle, slaves, knives, fish-hooks, cooking implements, and similar things have been money. The "store of value" function manifests itself early.
But very early a different sort of commodity comes in. Articles of ornament early begin to take the place of articles that minister to more animal wants. It seems strange that articles meeting wants which are commonly counted frivolous and fanciful should distance those obviously necessary in the race for a place as money. It seems strange that the nations now at war should seem more concerned about their gold supplies than about their wheat supplies.[462] But it is none the less a fact that men in all ages have been enormously concerned about ornament. In warm regions, ornament has commonly preceded clothing. Very early, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, nose-pendants, etc., became objects of exceedingly great desire. And very early, gold and silver were used for such purposes, and men made long expeditions for them and fought wars for them in very early times, before the money economy was developed far. Other ornaments than those made of gold and silver have also become money. Wampum, polished shells, iron ornaments, etc., have all been money. The Karoks of California were accustomed to use strings of shell ornaments as money. When this was supplanted by American silver, they used strings of silver coins as ornaments, dressing their women lavishly with rows of silver dimes, quarters, and half-dollars! Ornament and money are freely interchangeable in primitive life. To-day, in the Western world, the thing is more specialized and differentiated, and the interchange of money and ornament is largely confined to jewelers, bankers, especially international bankers, gold brokers, and the mints, through whom the rest of society make the interchange. In India, however, the peasant's hoard takes the form of bracelets, bangles, and earrings for his wife and daughters, and the peasant himself seems to regard them in the double light of provision for future needs, and as conferring social distinction. They are both ornament and savings bank, and are superior to a savings bank from the standpoint of effective saving, since the natives would spend what they put in the bank, but only famine can make them dispose of the ornaments of their women.[463] Saving is a practice not easily started. There are powerful motives in human life making for prodigality. Social prestige comes to the man whose hospitality is lavish. Social expectation, which is the most powerful steady motive power in human life, makes powerfully for prodigality. Thrift is a virtue little esteemed among primitive men, and none too highly esteemed among the masses in most countries. The grudging person, the tightwad, the man who fails to do his share of the treating, the woman who entertains her guests with inadequate fare—none of these enjoy high social esteem. To offset this, a motive equally powerful must manifest itself. It would be considered mean and contemptible for the Hindu to put money away instead of spending it on feasts at marriages and funerals, and in hospitality on other festive occasions. But he gains, instead of losing, in social esteem and prestige, if he decorates his women with gold and silver. Later, the advantage of such a practice as a matter of provision against future wants would get into men's minds, and would become an added incentive to maintain and increase the practice. Thus the frivolous and fanciful side of men's nature furnishes a powerful lever for the development of both money and capital. In the store of value function we find one of the earliest and most significant functions of money. Carlile offers a wealth of evidence to show this interchangeability of money and ornament among many peoples, at different stages of culture.
Three powerful elements of human nature work together in sustaining the value of the metals which become widely used as ornament:
(1) love of approbation;
(2) the sex impulse;
(3) the spirit of rivalry, or competition.
In these three we have, perhaps, the firmest basis which it is possible to construct for the value of anything! When religion is added, as has often been the case with the precious metals, the basis becomes solid indeed! Modern social psychology has increasingly made clear the power of the first. Social expectation can take the raw stuff of human nature, and mold it into almost any form it pleases. Original, hereditary differences remain. Some raw stuff is so inferior that no high social organization can be built out of it. Some stuff cannot respond very effectively to the social stimuli. But qualitatively, the tendency is for men to become what society expects. Individuals succeed more or less in meeting social expectation. But the very elements of individual aspiration and ambition, the very self of the individual, are molded to the social pattern, and, with the same racial stock, vary almost indefinitely from time to time and from place to place, with the mores. If ornament confers distinction,—and almost everywhere it does—men will seek to possess ornaments.
Commonly it is for the sake of the other sex that men seek ornaments. Ornaments are an aid in wooing! Men gain wives by being able to give them ornaments.—Not that this is the whole story!—And social expectation, almost everywhere, requires that men decorate the wives that they have won. Wives usually reinforce social expectation in this matter.