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Gold is of no use in itself. Nor is money, whether or not based on gold. Money is of use only as a medium through which we trade goods and services.
Our present money has no value in itself. It has value only in terms of remunerations (what you earn), and prices (what you can buy with what you earn). Both are subject to variance based on disputation, with a general greed-motivated trend upwards (inflation). Inflation at 2-3% a year erodes savings by the same measure; our present money is neither stable nor an effective store of value. Basing money on gold will not give it defined value; what is an ounce of gold worth, in terms of a loaf of bread or a day's labour? Nor will basing money on gold create stability; there will still be inflation, followed by a corrective recession, the economic cycle familiar to us all. Remunerations and prices will continue to be settled by dispute, strikes and opportunism, with no fair and just relationship between work and reward. Wealth, rather than work, creates wealth. First and foremost, we need to work, to produce the goods and services we need to consume. And we need to work efficiently, producing the best possible quality for the least input of work. That is the first essential for the creation of prosperity. And to create a fair, just and stable society, we must ensure that reward relates directly to work done, to labour and skill contributed. This requires that we evolve a system for measuring work in all its many aspects. And that unit of measure becomes our unit of accounting, through which we record work, reward, and prices. We only have one commodity to contribute and to trade, and that is work. Every job, every product, every service contains one and only one element: work. Labour and skill. When we learn to measure it, we will have a true definition of value, and thus fair trade, work for work, skill for skill, value for value. A challenging, satisfying job for everyone who wants one, a fair reward reflecting work contributed, and prices of goods and services reflecting the work they contain: this simple formula combined with productive use of labour will create a fair and prosperous society. An accounting system based on work-content also provides an effective store of value for saving. As productivity increases, work-content and prices are reduced. As prices go down, the value of savings is increased rather than eroded.
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