I was reading this
The central benefit of money is its predictable purchasing power. A monetary commodity is not easy to produce. The cost of mining is high. Money is slowly adopted by a large number of participants. These participants use money as a means of exchange. Why? Because it was valuable the day before. They therefore expect it to be valuable the next day. Money has continuity of value. This is not intrinsic value. It is historic value. So, a person can buy money by the sale of goods or services, set this money aside, and re-enter the markets in a different location or in a different time, in the confidence that he will probably be able to buy a similar quantity of goods and services.
And I was thinking that a Dunyain is less or not inclined to be taken in by the illusion of expectation. To them the objects we use as money would be a node in a web of causations they might cause in world born. Never mind how the above text mentions history, and the Dunyain are a people without history.
Further, sure, we can think about money as just an arbitrary object - but here's the social inertia, the social current that sweep us back in. ARE we going to treat the money object that way? Or are we going to treat it that everyone else is going to treat those objects as being a worthy exchange for their goods, and so we let ourselves get swept back into that fervour and start treating those money objects as a worthy exchange for our labour? Wait, no, we don't think of them as a worthy exchange for our labour - instead we let ourselves get swept back into the current of
believing the money objects we currently hold ARE worth someone else trading their goods for our money objects.
Basically a religious fervor.
I think it's interesting to be able to see oneself being swept into that. Anyone else get that when they pause and consider the money in their wallet as just a papery or plasticy object? As much as that candy wrapper being blown along in the wind down the street is a papery or plasticy object? But then the feeling of being swept back in...?