I have read your article "Why does money have value" but it seems that it can be summarised as: money is valuable because people believe that people will accept it in exchange for valuable stuff and people are willing to accept it in exchange for valuable stuff because they believe it will hold its value. Which boils down to "money is valuable because people believe it will hold its value".
This argument leaves a rather large hole at its centre as it circles around swallowing its own tail! Isn't it a more convincing and consistent argument that money is valuable because a sufficiently large proportion of people are compelled to acquire money, not to exchange for stuff, but to pay their taxes and to repay their debts, and that this creates a continuous demand for it. And further, that people incur debts because the state grants and enforces property rights over all valuable stuff to anybody undertaking to exchange that stuff for money, meaning that if you don't already own the stuff you want then the only way to get it is with money. These two aspects of coercive state power are sufficient to ensure that money is sought after and has value in its own right, and not just as an exchange commodity. They don't guarantee what money's exchange value will be, that will still be up to the market, but they do ensure that money will always retain some exchange value (but, bearing in mind the objections you list to inflation, it would be as well for the state to monitor and maintain where possible the level of that exchange value). It is notable that in cases where taxes go uncollected and are widely ignored, and where enforceable property rights are non-existent, such states are deemed failed states whose domestic currency markets are widely avoided, even by their own citizens, in favour of scavanging, barter and black market transactions using foreign currencies.
If you'd like to contact the Economics Guide, you can do so by using the feedback form.

