[JumpCrisscross]

> International trade in a multipolar world requires a money supply that no single government can arbitrarily enforce its will on

Do we have such a money supply? If not, do we have international trade? Is the world not multipolar?

This claim fails on face value. Most of history was multipolar, international trading and reliant on money states de facto controlled. (You’re not moving tonnes of gold without the state’s permission and not being chased by them.)

[suoduandao2]

>Is the world not multipolar?

An argument could be made that the US stopped being the arbiter of last resort wrt the medium of trade since the Ukraine war, but before that point, it was certainly not multipolar. There was one political entity that, along with its allies, controlled the value of money, and they were disincentivised from cheating too hard by the fact that they could dictate terms to the rest of the world if it was important enough to them.

But I grant you, heavily-guarded ships full of physical gold would still work today. If that's a future you're on board with you may want an answer for how the piracy problem will evolve if trends around the cost of kinetic weaponry continue.

[JumpCrisscross]

> that's a future you're on board with

I'm rejecting the premise that we need a neutral money supply. (I reject the notion such a thing can exist. Money--monetary value, even--are social constructs.)

International trade in a multipolar world with sovereign currencies and commodities works. It has since at least the Bronze Age. So yes, if someone wants to cart around gold or use crypto, that's fine. But it doesn't magically exempt them from the law. A Dutchman committed crimes under Dutch law. They were arrested in the Netherlands. This isn't some Kim Dotcom bullshit. It's the law being applied plainly.

[akimball]

Bronze age? No. Once gold leaves the sovereigns borders, it is a neutral money.

Since 1971? Yes. That is a very brief experiment in monetary history, and quite Lindy. It can be validly estimated to have 51 years of life left in it (albeit with vast error bars, difficult to calculate).

[JumpCrisscross]

> Bronze age? No. Once gold leaves the sovereigns borders, it is a neutral money

"Neutral money" has no meaning in an era when information travels at the same speed as trade. (It arguably lacks any meaning today.)

Bronze Age civilizations didn't have the surplus labor to haul around gold. (Nor to test it.) Though they didn't have coins, they used token money--from engraved clay and stone markers to shells and beads. Commodity money was traded in representative form locally and physically over long distances. Commodities, not bullion, were used because they preserved value over distance--a Hittite trader couldn't know what a gold bullion would exchange for in Hispania or Egypt when they got there.

[akimball]

The attachment of provenance to an item makes it non-fungible, removing it's moneyness, until and unless that history can be removed.

Just-so stories based on implausible premises -”didnt have surplus labor" lol- are conspicuously unpersuasive.

[JumpCrisscross]

> stories based on implausible premises -”didnt have surplus labor" lol- are conspicuously unpersuasive

Versus stories about neutral money?

Insufficient labor is a hypothesis. The archaeological evidence is engraved clay and stone markers. Long-distance trades settled with commodities. Bullion being traded between kings and kingdoms, seldom by merchants, and abandoned stores of value holding jewelry, precious stones and spices.

International trade in multipolar worlds does fine without a "neutral" money.