Nobel Prize-winning Robert Shiller: cryptocurrencies may not reform money

Robert Shiller has written a relatively calm post in which he reminds the reader about other various experimental monetary initiatives. For example, the Cincinnati Time Store of 1827 had its own system where goods were sold for working hours printed on special ‘labor notes’. Robert Owen has also tried to use his own payment system backed by time money which were similar to the labor notes in the Time Store.

Both experiments failed, as well as communism which de-facto had to delete the classic monetary system in order to become what it always claimed to be:

“Likewise,Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proposed that the central Communist premise – “Abolition of private property” – would be accompanied by a “Communistic abolition of buying and selling.” Eliminating money, however, was impossible to do, and no Communist state ever did so.”

The existence of experiments surrounded with the allure of innovation but ultimately failing at the end of the day leads the expert to believe that cryptocurrencies would be nothing different. Another reason for the popularity of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies might be the public excitement around computers - just like the “electric dollar” (1932) was connected with the big rise of the use of electricity.

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