Why is gold valuable? Nature, social power and the value of things

Abstract

The paper proposes a social history of the value of gold that stresses its connection to the acquisition, use and defense of social power. Gold’s natural scarcity has continually been reinforced by an artificial scarcity arising from how powerful groups have used it, but the ruling class monopoly of control has alternated with periods of more widespread social access. In one period, gold is very closely held by a small number of very high-status people, followed by a time, often related to war, when the distribution of gold is significantly expanded socially. Then gold is drawn back in to the center and is closely held once more. This pattern is evident in Antiquity and, surprisingly, the 20th century. The paper explores the way in which the value of things established under one social order may continue to inflect the perception of value in later periods.