What Has Government Done to Our Money? ethical agenda. Both essays are normally found together in one binding. In "The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar", Rothbard explains how having a currency permanently fixed by law at a certain weight in gold, and always redeemable in gold, greatly incentivizes governments and banks to be much more ethical, civil, and honest in their lending methods, accounting methods, and in their honorable pursuits of other profits related to managing and supplying money to society. He shows how any money, backed by gold or not, is a commodity. He argues any commodity could become a money and that every
Commodity value Commodity value In the field of economics, the commodity value of a good is its free market intrinsic value under optimal use conditions. In a free market, the commodity value of a good will be reflected by its price. For example, if an acre of land can yield a net of 100 dollars loss by lying fallow, 50 dollars gain by being planted with corn, and 100 dollars gain by being planted with wheat, then that acre's commodity value is 100 dollars; the farmer is assumed to put his land to best use. The price of a commodity fluctuates around