Can you expand? Here’s the difference as I see it:
Price index: the dollar is worth 5% less than last year because it buys 5% less of the stuff in this market basket, populated with stuff representative of the “cost of living”
Gold standard: the dollar is worth 5% less than last year because it buys 5% less gold
Depending on the context, either concept can be anything from useful to deeply misleading. However, in contrast to the (mis-)use of price indexes in mainstream economics, the goldbug obsessions can always be countered by simply pointing out that gold is not an end-all. Therefore, while there will always be goldbugs immune to rational argument, their ideas are unlikely to become a basis for elaborate, sophisticated-looking, and academically accredited pseudoscience.
In contrast, the concept of “real” values in mainstream economics typically degenerates into an even more far-flung Platonic fantasy that there is some “real value” of money out there to be measured, discussed, and incorporated into theories like a real physical quantity. This fantasy is obscured by a vast cloud of complicated and abstruse (and seemingly objective and scientific) theory, to the point where it’s usually impossible to disentangle reality from fantasy and spin without a very considerable effort—in which economists are usually unwilling to cooperate, if not outright hostile.
Can you expand? Here’s the difference as I see it:
Price index: the dollar is worth 5% less than last year because it buys 5% less of the stuff in this market basket, populated with stuff representative of the “cost of living”
Gold standard: the dollar is worth 5% less than last year because it buys 5% less gold
Which is more or less useful, and why?
Depending on the context, either concept can be anything from useful to deeply misleading. However, in contrast to the (mis-)use of price indexes in mainstream economics, the goldbug obsessions can always be countered by simply pointing out that gold is not an end-all. Therefore, while there will always be goldbugs immune to rational argument, their ideas are unlikely to become a basis for elaborate, sophisticated-looking, and academically accredited pseudoscience.
In contrast, the concept of “real” values in mainstream economics typically degenerates into an even more far-flung Platonic fantasy that there is some “real value” of money out there to be measured, discussed, and incorporated into theories like a real physical quantity. This fantasy is obscured by a vast cloud of complicated and abstruse (and seemingly objective and scientific) theory, to the point where it’s usually impossible to disentangle reality from fantasy and spin without a very considerable effort—in which economists are usually unwilling to cooperate, if not outright hostile.