> Barter has always had its niche, and probably will for the foreseeable
> future. But there is a simple, fundamental reason why currency works better
> for most transactions. Comparing values of a collection of objects without
> money is an O(n^2) problem, whereas comparing values in a common reference
> currency is only an O(n) problem. It would take a rather large disadvantage
> to offset such a large efficiency gain (as witness the fact that people
> don't usually revert to barter unless you have really, really serious
> problems with the money supply).
Well, the usual argument here is that what's getting cheaper is the
computation. At that point, the cost of simply having, distributing and
dealing with money is more expensive than doing that more complicated
calculation.
I doubt we'll ever see complex barter as a ubiquitous part of our economy:
something spiky will eliminate the economy as we know it long before
complex barter will make sense.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:04:27 MDT