I don’t want to quibble about the trivial, but are we contradicting ourselves here, or am I missing something?
In practice, there is usually a government involved, but the value comes from the willingness of people to use it–and their faith in the continued willingness of others to use it–not what any government says.
I mean, if fair tokens aren’t fiat money, what are they? They certainly aren’t commodity or commodity-backed. And they are certainly money.
Just missed the edit window and hope this doesn’t sound snarky but, staring at your posts in confusion, I have to ask:
@ wmfellows - you do know that to call a gold coin “debased” and to say it “fails the density test” are almost synonymous, right?
I don’t see a contradiction, my reading / understanding gave me the sense that it was the collapse of order, government and the like, not a question of a density test that saw the disappearance of coinage - that angle in relation to somewhere above someone postulating that metallic coinage continued in usage, that somehow metallic money (as money rather than barter) had a value independent of the issuing authority and its reputation. The historical record rather says otherwise, to my reading.
Or to put it another way, debased coinage continued to work as money when a coherent government system was in place - although its underlying metallic value became trivial relative to original supposed value - but disappeared when that government disappeared.
So my twin points were that the Question starts off (implicit in its phrasing and indirect reference to Gold standard) with the erroneous presumption that metallic systems are somehow intrinsically resistant to manipulation, which is incorrect and that said value is not itself Fiat in a sense, coming from confidence / utility to put in the money unit by its users (assured by the government).
I am close to the observation of Manda Jo on this, since user confidence as to issuer is an important one, if the issuer doesn’t maintain confidence among the reasonable part of the population…
As for the GQ answer to this, I have to ask, at what point do we say “fiat money” started? In its current form, I have impression only with the collapse of Bretton Woods (which appears to be the OPs point of reference). In which case ongoing experiment. Otherwise the Song Dynasty experiment with paper money seems to have run quite a long time before they lost control, gave in to temptation and printed too much.
I said ultimately. Economists argue about the exactly how fiat money gets its value (ultimately; we all understand that it has value to me because somebody will give me something for it, but that doesn’t really answer the question). One view is that it gets its value from its unique ability to extinguish tax liabilities.
The British government accepts works of art in certain circumstances, so not “unique”! 
I’d still like to see a cite for this nonsense gibberish. Unless you claim that “gold” is somehow equatable with “debashed gold-like coinage.”
(And, on another matter, I’m so sorry that a 2009 CIA summation is not a “recent study” especially when presented as a … gasp! … “wiki graphic”! Are you having a bad day?)
Nonesense gibberish? Raw gold is most certainly not a direct equivalent nor substitute of gold coinage. I see no reason to “cite” that, but you can read of the history of money in a competent work like Power of Gold or the like. I haven’t an interest in debating that.
As for your recent study claim, well yes. A 2nd order derived graphic from a summation of other sources presenting Gini data, is not a study, not by ordinary meanings of the word “study.” Summary graphic, summation, source, all good words, accurate words.
In other words the answer to my question
was “Yes.”
On the other matter, when you’re in the thread I guess my cites should be simply marked it.
How you derive this escapes. It is more than clear that metallic coinage was not a direct substitute for raw metals, and had value beyond its mere metallic value, the practice of coin clipping shows that well enough.
My understanding is this conversation is about money, not raw materials.
We all seem to be in agreement but quibbling about semantics. See if you can agree with:
- Debased gold coins are a form of fiat money.
- Genuine gold bullion can be considered “real money” whether one is an “aurophile” or not.
- The rejection of debased gold coins in the medieval period was not a rejection of genuine gold bullion.
If you do agree with those statements, see if you can figure out why others find the following comment by you to be confused:
Well very simply that precious metals held in ingot form, that is bullion etc is not money.
As someone said above (Ahem, I see it was J Chance), people are confusing store of wealth and money, which are not perfectly synonymous or congruent of necessity.
So, no (2) is false. It is potentially a store of wealth (depending on the culture), but it is not money as such.
Further, re (3), in the dark ages, coinage simply seemed to have ceased as such in the West, due to lack of central authority among other reasons perhaps, so there seems to me a good basis to question the ‘inherent’ value of gold as money (transactional medium). Questioning also gold based monetary systems inherent ability to ‘hold value’ comes from the observation that coinage and symbolic representation can very evidently be manipulated (debasement), one really hasn’t overcome the problem that is trying to be solved (fear of excessive manipulation).
Of course my statement quoted, I was trying to draw on ex-European experiences as well, where again gold as money was not as esteemed even where it was valued for its ornative value as in jewellery.
Asking how long fiat money has lasted is like asking how long democracy has lasted.
We don’t know, because the trend is always toward fiat money and toward democracy. They are the de facto standards everywhere, even though they are relatively recent.
It does happen that democracy does revert to a form of totalitarianism in some places, but those are not staple in the modern world. It does not happen that fiat money returns to a gold standard. Ever.
Think about that. You can go around the world and find every kind of political system and every range of philosophies, from left to right and off the charts, for the last century or so, and not one of them has ever made the choice to return to the gold standards that proponents claim is infinitely superior to fiat money. How is that possible if the gold standard has even the slightest marginal value over fiat money?
Obviously, it’s not possible. The gold standard has no value in a modern global economy. So the answer to the OP is that fiat money will last as long as our economic system does. We just don’t know how long because we are presumably in the early days, just as we’re at the early days of democracy.
Right, I think that’s a clear statement. If we take the current system which effectively starts with the end of Bretton Woods, then the answer is X years from 1971. A better guide is what % of fiat currencies since that date have experienced serious hyper-inflation (weighted by population or GDP per capita perhaps, unweighted would seem to give silly answers)?
I think, impressionistically, that the majority of currencies have held up since that time (excluding Soviet bloc system currencies, which seems reasonable).