[damptowel]

> You're drawing a false equivalence. A dollar (or a gold bar) does not represent a specific amount of goods or services that any specific counterparty is bound to deliver. So in general no, money is not inherently debt.

This is confused. A dollar is a debt/credit dual created by central bank and private finance operations.

A dollar is a unit of monetary accounting, a physical dollar is a token representation of a debt/credit entry inside an accounting ledger.

A bar of gold is a commodity denominated in a monetary value. It is not a token representation of a state enforced contract.

[mindslight]

Yes, a dollar does represent a coupled obligation of someone out there to collect it (or another dollar) in order to satisfy their debt. I do agree that a dollar is therefore debt-based money.

What I was refuting was OP calling all currency in general "debt" based on it having little "intrinsic use", and therefore only useful for what it can be traded for.