Copper coin

To turn to something more specifically from Roman
monetary history, Rome at first had onl^_a^copper com. This had been coined by Servius Tullius and was called a pecunia.

Punic wars

In the meantime, in the cala^ty which
the public experienced during the Punic Wars, the price of copper had been subject to such great varia­ tion that the as, as copper of a given weight was then called, had fallen to only one twenty-fourth its ancient value.

Personal services, fruits of the earth?

Power and happiness

Inevitably,when­ ever greed upsets orderly government, everyone becomes impoverished; no one is enriched. When, on the other hand, greed is restrained, the state is enriched, power and happiness are augmented

For Europe, already rendered bountiful by commerce,
by trading companies, and by industry, this meant peace, humanity. Improvement in the arts, liixury, and magnifi­ cence — filling her with happiness and wealth.

But for the innocent Indians, it meant nothing but plunder, ser­ vitude, slaughter, and desolation. The barbarian use of
slaves spread among us, as Hhe Indians and African Ne­ groes became our slaves and were treated, perhaps, more
cruelly than others had treated them.

Surely, whoever considers it seriously, will discover that no people car enrich itself without rendering some other poeple poor and unhappy.

Because a great distance protected us from th« tjnsightly calamities which victims of our luxury suf­ fered in America, it was easy for us to persuade our­
selves that industry and trade had innocently brought us this gain.

The
rest is sent to Old India, where it is traded for many
of the comforts of life, including: spices, cloth, linens, dye-stuffs, ivory, gems,^”®® china, and above
all, coffee, tea and medicines.

Things gotta be put into use

It is also easy to understand that if gold and silver were not put to this use,^ these metals would no longer be regarded as wealth.

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Mining bitcoin ***

This might be because of the deadly air in the mines (in which all the minining is done by Nepoesj
acquired at a great cost) or because of the quicksilvferj poured over the ore.

So wise!

I believe this attitude is a sign, ap omen, that the people of these regions wished to abandon mining, which was de~populating and destroy­ ing them, in order to live a better life. Indeed, these people regarded us as the barbarians.

Bitcoin will never be plentiful ***

Value–

Value, on the other hand, is a comparison,of money with other things, and since qll other things are valued by money, money is there­ foremeasuredbythesethings.

Value of goods?

I beg my readers to revert always to the value of goods; the_true_value of money |
will in this manner be revealed.

.

Aristotle, a great genius and a man of wonder, has
laid bare many fine considerations concerning the nature of money as, for example, in Customs, Chapter Seven, Book Five where he has written as follows:
long believed. Namely, that not only the metals com­ prising money but every other worldly thing, barring
none, has its natural value derived from certain, gen­ eral, and invariant principles;”® that neither whimsy, law, nor princes, nor anything else can violate these principles and their effects.Finally, concerning value, the Scholastics have said: passive se habent.”^ Any ediface built on these foundations will be du­ rable and everlasting. I trust my readers will pardon any verbosity here, given the importance of the subject. It would be wrong to consider me responsible for so great a truth, should any be inclined to do so; the responsibility belongs instead to the infinite number of writers who have either failed to understand, or have not wished to demonstrate it. The value of things, in general, is defined by many astheesteemwhichmenhaveforsuchthings. Perhaps, these words do not evoke an idea which is as clear or as distinct as it might be.^“^ One might say that es­ teem or value,as conceived by an individual, is an idea of proportion between the possession of one thing and another.If we say that ten bushels”^® of grain
are worth as much as a cask of wine, we are expressing a proportion of equality between possession of one thingandtheother. Itfollowsthatbecausemenare always most careful not to be defrauded of their own pleasures, one thing exchanges for another, and, conse­ quently, equality involves neither loss nor fraud.
It can be seen from what I have said that the value of things varies as men’s ideas and needs vary. Since
TO voy\aa yiyo^>€, Kara diet TO^TO Touvoya
, kai voyioya, oti ou
4)uaEi, aXXa vou5 feoTt, icai e4>’nyiv
ysTaSaXXeiv, Ka\ Troinaai axpnaov: Ex convento successit numrmiSf atque
ob hanc causam voyioua vocabitur (a Graecis) nempe a le^e, quia non natura, sed leqe valeatr sitque in nostra potestate eum immutare, inutilemque
reddere.**”^

Value and esteem

The value of things, in general, is defined by many
astheesteemwhichmenhaveforsuchthings.

Utility and scarcity

A small bag of sand from the shores of Japan, on the other hand, would be a rare thing, but since it has no particular utility, it
would also have no value.

Utility is happiness

Utility is the ability a thing .has to provide us
with happiness.

Facts

It is an ultimate truth that just as a -thing is attained and, consequent­ ly, as soon as one ceases to need it, a person begins to crave something else.