I was wondering: Since you are fighting for the freedom of choice of the system of measurement used in trade, what about the second part of a trade transaction :

Currency

Should the customer be allowed to use his own currency (eg Euro) assuming the trader knows the exchange rate ?

How far do you want freedom of speech (and choice) to go ?

Ralf

Hello Ralf, I'm not sure whether you are asking
BWMA (the host organization) or only the British
posters or maybe everybody. I'm just in the everybody
category but maybe I should answer?

I see money tokens as radically different from language
(and units as words in our language for
describing physical amounts.)

Language, I think, can safely be left to the
people that speak it and the role of goverment should
be minimal. Government should play servant to the
civil society--interfering only to confirm and
standardize what are already the common patterns of
speech. Culture (including language) should be as
free as possible from state control.

I trust people individually and in their voluntary
associations (comprising civil society) to be
intelligent about language. Academic associations
are voluntary and aren't backed by police power.
I can decide whether or not I respect some professional
group and they can't come after me if I don't respect
them, so they have to persuade me by their intelligence. I like aspects of the civil (non-state)
society and I like civil society to be in control
rather than state where that works.

Money, as I see it, is a totally different matter.
The forms of money common in today's world, such as
bank deposits, bills, coinage, REQUIRE very active
intervention by the state. The state (with all the
law enforcement apparatus) regulates the money at
every level and ensures reliability and uniformity.
Maybe there could be a different system of money
not requiring state control but what we have does.

It is completely uninteresting to me what name the
unit of money has (dollar, franc, mark, euro,...) as
long as I trust the government creating and controlling
that money not to screw around too much. It is just
a token for counting economic value and making transactions and I don't care about the size or name.
One is as good as another as long as the government
behind it is not flakey.

But physical
units connect me to nature and they are very interesting to me and different ones have different feel and
different handiness. Also I can use two different sorts of
units at once in fact it often helps. Being bilingual
in physical units is a lot simpler than trying to
use two countries' currency in the same transaction!
So I don't mind having several units (unlike with money).

NO DOUBT WE COULD IMAGINE SOME OTHER NON-STATE KIND OF MONEY, like
nuts or oxen or intrinsically valuable coins of precious metal or private banknotes or homemade script.
You can think about that. But we DONT! The kind of
money we have is the uniform exclusive creation of the state and
totally controlled by the state. There is no merit in
confusing this money with language and culture and areas where
we have freedom. But your question is tending to
confuse the two.


Government is able to obstruct natural evolution of
language but should not do it. The state should step
in only where absolutely necessary. It should assist
rather than making choices for people. OK to test the
scales shops use (to uniformize) but not OK to
force different units on unwilling shopkeepers.

Government should restrict its role to VALIDATION
of the common speech. If people mostly say mile then the
government should put up roadsigns saying mile.
If people mostly say furlong then goverment should
put up roadsigns saying furlong. Or kilometer or
league or whatever.


Other posters (Paul, GBrown for example) have said
this freedom thing about units all very clearly already. Nothing
I'm saying (or I think they said) applies to
state-created and state-controlled money. That is
so different from language (and the part of language
for physical quantity) that there is almost no
connection or analogy.

So when I hear people bring in the issue of money
(as you did just now) I generally think "That guy
is just making trouble. Just confusing issues and
muddying the waters of discussion." Or else I think
the guy is not too bright (but you I know are bright,
although perhaps overzealous for universal metrication.) Anyway, in this case I am not sure
what to think this time, with you. Do you seriously imagine there is some
logical bridge between units and money so that
you are asking a reasonable question?

BWMA position about units does not imply or
suggest anything about money. Why even bother
to ask if it does?

You should see already by yourself they are
two different matters.

Anyway that's what I think.

Why does it matter to you whether or not Britain
keeps its traditional units? I'm not sure where
you live. Is it partly in Britain and the US so
that the non-metric units bother you?

I would like to understand your personal interest
and point of view.

If you *really* want to you could pay in Euros - its a legal grey area.

If you *really* wanted to you could probably ask for your goods in Spanish, if you're willing to persevere.


Silly argument really

I'm a bit confused -- What's to stop a merchant from demanding that all of his accounts be settled with, say, toothpicks, or potatoes?

You're saying that people aren't allowed to exchange their own property as they see fit?

Not totally a silly question, I think. Leonard is quite correct in saying that so long as we have a fiat currency created and regulated by the state (as every country currently does) it is difficult to allow people to deal freely other than in the legal tender. However, as Ralf should already realise if he read my "Honest Money" essay, there are ways of potentially removing the function of money supply from the state and returning it to the market. In that case traders and customers should be as free to choose which currency to use as which units to measure in (in practice, almost everyone in the country would tend to choose to use the same currency as everyone else, except in special circumstances - much as they do with traditional units of measurements).

There is not a businessman in the country who would refuse ANY sale, in any currency PROVIDING the exchange rate and transaction costs still left him a PROFIT.

Good point! Still, if those transaction costs include being hassled by Trading Standards Officers or the Inland Revenue, your businessman might have to add on a pretty hefty premium.

Coinage/currency is outside BWMA's remit. However, any unit of exchange is lawful between consenting parties, so this must include the euro. Otherwise, a law would have been needed to allow shops to accept it.

I don't think you're correct there. There are lots of reasons in law why consenting parties aren't simply allowed to use barter or other means of exchange at will, ranging from tax law to money-laundering regulations. To enter into foreign currency transactions you either need to be licensed as a Bank (or equivalent) or must identify yourself to the bank and fill out a special form. Shops using the euro are probably breaking the law, but are encouraged to do so by the europhile establishment. (If you'd said, "Any unit of exchange OUGHT to be lawful between consenting parties" that would have been a different matter entirely.)

Well, I don't know how it works on your side of the Atlantic, but over here it is perfectly legal to emit a private currency as long as you don't claim it to be legal tender, can back it up, and can exchange it one for one with the Federal Reserve money. Of course you can't force a business to accept it.

Examples: Disney Dollars, gift certificates, American Liberty Currency, Egold, etc.

If you can use a private currency, more than likely you can use the fiat currency of another country. The question is whether or not the guy you're paying will accept it.

A rare pleasure to find MikeW posting here.
I've seen his careful and concise contributions
to metricsucks, as I expect several others here have
as well.

"it is perfectly legal to emit a private currency as long as you don't claim it to be legal tender, can back it up, and can exchange it one for one with the Federal Reserve money"

The sting probably lies in the Federal Reserve requirements that mean you can't just use it any old how (in effect, it will have to be a secondary currency backed 100% with the Fed - and so become just another variety of the US dollar). Don't know about foreign currencies, but you'll probably find money-laundering regulations restricting their use too nowadays.

Some firms "pay" their staff with company cars and lodgings - is this taxable?

What is the position if a barber cuts a plummer's hair in return for having the drains fixed? This surely cannot be unlawful, but do they have to declare it as work/income?

Company cars and lodgings are definitely taxable (except where they count as legitimate business expenses). The barter arrangement you describe almost certainly would be unlawful (a transaction on the so-called "grey market"), unless they invoice each other at the full going rate, pay the correct amount of VAT, fill in the correct forms, enter it in their books (as a monetary transaction in sterling) and declare it on their tax returns.

In italy you cannot give someone something for free without raising an invoice for a zero amount. Officially this is also true of things like Christmas Gifts/Birthday gifts.

Something to do with anti-mafia measures.

Of course, the Mafia get away with their rackets anyway, and the average law-abiding Giuseppe is stuck filing invoices for his children's birthay gifts.