By the way that’s exactly why gold and silver became the main money commodities which contained the basis of the World’s leading countries’ monetary systems till the middle of the last century. These precious metals were admitted by the majority of nations all over the World as the most recognized monetary language which facilitated greatly as internal and international trade.
During the direct commodity exchange (G-G – good for good) the purchase and sale happened simultaneously in one place without any gaps. The commodity circulation (G1-M-G2) consists of two independent actions separated in time and place. Money plays the role of representative which allows to overpass the temporal and spatial gaps and to provide continuous process flow.
To money peculiarities as a mean of circulation first of all we can include the real money appearance in circulation and its evanescence in exchange. In this connection the token money – paper and credit – can perform the velocity function. Here the parallel countermotion of money and goods happens when money is tied to the goods movement. Historically this function generated token (paper) money.
The function of means of hoarding and savings. Money being the universal equivalent i.e. providing its owner the receipt of any good becomes a creation of social wealth. People feel an aspiration to save and reserve money. During the metal circulation this money function played the role of spontaneous regulator of the money turnover – spare money went to treasures and money shortage was filling up by them.
In the conditions of widened commodity reproduction the accumulation (saving and storing) of temporarily disposable monetary resources is a necessary condition of the capital turnover. The creation of money reserves flattens the inequalities and peculiarities of economic life. On a nationwide scale the gold reserve stock creation was required. In accordance with a demonetization of gold the amount of gold hoard gives evidence of the State’s richness and provides trust of residents and nonresidents to the national monetary unit.
Money can perform this function because it has «a perfect liquid- ity» of a nominal value.
Of course there is no use to save money in the countries with growing inflation because it devalues too fast. In consequence it looses its force of attraction in spite of high liquidity. If every day we can buy the lesser quantity of goods on dollar, ruble or tenge people wouldn’t like to save the value too long in a monetary form. There are known cases when in the conditions of hyperinflation the workers claim not for the monthly wages but for daily in order to spend their money before the prices will grow on the next day.
In those countries where the hyperinflation exists the national currency could be almost denied as a mean of hoarding and as a standard of value. In such circumstances an interesting situation appears: the national monetary units perform the functions of circulation and standard of prices but as a mean of hoarding the more stable foreign currency is used bought by the monetary assets holders.
The representative function interweaves and interlinks directly with the function of money as a mean of payment – payment of taxes, receipt and reimbursement of credit, payment of salaries, allowances, payment for utility services. Whereby a money circulation is not accompanied by a simultaneous goods transfer.
Initially this function was performed by the gold money and then by paper and credit. Historically the function of a mean of payment generated the credit money – a kind of token money. Money as a mean of payment has a specific scheme of transfer (G-UPI-G) which is not linked with the goods’ countermotion, i.e. money – urgent proof of indebtedness – money.