On the grounds that if the goblins can tell them apart, there must be some difference. Remember, something doesn’t need to have a physical use to have value—see Bitcoin, or intellectual property, or stock options. Simple scarcity is sufficient to create value if people decide to value it.
Simple scarcity is sufficient to create value if people decide to value it.
“If people decide to value it” makes that a tautology. Leaving that aside, scarcity is necessary but not sufficient. The only surviving painting by a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci of little renown will be valued, but less than one by Leonardo.
Silver has two stable isotopes, in roughly equal proportions. I doubt there’s much monisotopically refined silver in the world. It would cost more to make it, but it wouldn’t be worth more, unless someone wanted some that badly for a practical purpose.
As phrased it’s tautological, but my point was the implication—people can choose to value whatever they want, value is not intrinsic to an item. Lack of scarcity does provide an upper cap, though—air will never be valuable on the surface of Earth—so if people have chosen to value something, then scarcity is the remaining factor needed for it to have value. (I phrased it poorly, but I think it’s still strictly correct)
air will never be valuable on the surface of Earth
Actually, some cities have featured “air stations” or “air bars” due to smog, historically. I don’t know if they still exist, I haven’t heard of a contemporary one.
But which is “real” and which is “fake”? “Real” and “fake” are not objective properties of things. If only goblins can tell the two golds apart, why would anyone care? For practical purposes, for everyone else except Harry Potter there would just be “gold the goblins for unknown reasons say is type 1” and “gold the goblins for unknown reasons say is type 2″. Harry would be trying to find out what objective properties distinguish them.
The goblins are the central bankers of the wizarding world. They are entrusted with providing a reasonable money supply, and they’re free to use methods of their choice to create that(well, subject to assorted speciesist laws). I don’t care why the Federal Reserve says to use cotton money instead of plastic, as long as they run the money supply sufficiently well that I trust them.
On the grounds that if the goblins can tell them apart, there must be some difference. Remember, something doesn’t need to have a physical use to have value—see Bitcoin, or intellectual property, or stock options. Simple scarcity is sufficient to create value if people decide to value it.
“If people decide to value it” makes that a tautology. Leaving that aside, scarcity is necessary but not sufficient. The only surviving painting by a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci of little renown will be valued, but less than one by Leonardo.
Silver has two stable isotopes, in roughly equal proportions. I doubt there’s much monisotopically refined silver in the world. It would cost more to make it, but it wouldn’t be worth more, unless someone wanted some that badly for a practical purpose.
As phrased it’s tautological, but my point was the implication—people can choose to value whatever they want, value is not intrinsic to an item. Lack of scarcity does provide an upper cap, though—air will never be valuable on the surface of Earth—so if people have chosen to value something, then scarcity is the remaining factor needed for it to have value. (I phrased it poorly, but I think it’s still strictly correct)
Neither air nor water are scarce on Earth; but clean air and clean water have value.
Actually, some cities have featured “air stations” or “air bars” due to smog, historically. I don’t know if they still exist, I haven’t heard of a contemporary one.
But which is “real” and which is “fake”? “Real” and “fake” are not objective properties of things. If only goblins can tell the two golds apart, why would anyone care? For practical purposes, for everyone else except Harry Potter there would just be “gold the goblins for unknown reasons say is type 1” and “gold the goblins for unknown reasons say is type 2″. Harry would be trying to find out what objective properties distinguish them.
Fake in the sense that Goblins claim that gallons are made from raw gold, when they actually aren’t.
The goblins are the central bankers of the wizarding world. They are entrusted with providing a reasonable money supply, and they’re free to use methods of their choice to create that(well, subject to assorted speciesist laws). I don’t care why the Federal Reserve says to use cotton money instead of plastic, as long as they run the money supply sufficiently well that I trust them.