Question

The English economist William Stanley Jevons described a world tour during the 1880s by a French​ singer, Mademoiselle Zelie. One stop on the tour was a theater in the Society​ Islands, part of French Polynesia in the South Pacific. She performed for her usual​ fee, which was​ one-third of the receipts. This turned out to be three​ pigs, 23​ turkeys, 44​ chickens, 5000​ coconuts, and​ "considerable quantities of​ bananas, lemons, and​ oranges." She estimated that all of this would have had a value in France of 4000 francs. According to​ Jevons, "as Mademoiselle could not consume any considerable portion of the receipts​ herself, it became necessary in the meantime to feed the pigs and poultry with the​ fruit." ​Source: W. Stanley Jevons​, Money and the Mechanism of Exchange​, New​ York: D. Appleton and​ Company, 1889, pp.​ 1-2. Do the goods Mademoiselle Zelie received as payment fulfill the four functions of moneyLOADING...​?

Answer 1

No

Step-by-step explanation:

The four functions of money are:

1. serve as a medium of exchange: you can use money to purchase or sell goods or services. In this case, some local villagers could probably use food as a medium of exchange, but not Mademoiselle Zelie.
2. serve as a unit of account: again some local villagers might know that some X quantity of chicken is worth as much as Y pigs, but not Mademoiselle Zelie.
3. serve as a store of value: food rots pretty quickly, so it does not serve as a store of value.
4. serve as a standard of deferred payment: if Mademoiselle Zelie cannot use food to pay for the goods or services she needs right away, she will definitely not be able to use them to pay any debts.