Gold as Natural Money

By James Turk

2022.10.21

Every natural element with which the earth has been endowed has a usefulness—a purpose. If we listen to gold, its message is loud and clear—gold is money. To serve as natural money is gold’s highest purpose.

The advance of civilization demonstrates that nature throughout the ages, to our good fortune, has provided everything humanity needs to progress, including money. Few today, however, understand money as it has existed from prehistory and as it was perceived up until the dawn of the twentieth century. Since the commencement of the First World War in 1914, time-honored principles have been abandoned. Humanity has become enthralled with money substitutes like national currencies and, more recently, cryptocurrencies circulating in place of money, and people have subsequently lost sight of natural money itself.

Gold Is Natural Money

Although gold these days rarely circulates as currency because of government imposed restrictions and impediments, gold still retains all the features that explain why humanity in prehistory chose it to be money. Gold is natural money, or stated another way, nature’s money is gold, which is well illustrated by the following chart that presents the price of crude oil measured in four different currencies from a base of 100.