Didn't the Dutch East India Company go public in 1602?

Also, in ancient Rome, coinage with Caesar's face on it was traded above its bullion value. They'd kill 1/10th of your population repeatedly until you agreed to this (such was the origins of the word "decimation"), and then they'd buy their dinner from you with caesar-face coin and move on to the next village tomorrow. Now that you have some caesar-face coin, you have some incentive to continue upholding its inflated value, and the tax collectors will show up later and re-apply threats of violence to ensure that you continue to do so. That sounds like fiat currency to me.

Also, the federal reserve was established in 1913.

Dude, I'm all for framing the status quo as mutable, but maybe do a bit of research.

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Kon5ole 2 hours ago | parent [-]

>Also, in ancient Rome, coinage with Caesar's face on it was traded above its bullion value. They'd kill 1/10th of your population repeatedly until you agreed to this (such was the origins of the word "decimation")

Decimation has it's origin in a military punishment for insubordination or cowardice. Where did you get the fiat currency idea from?

	▲	__MatrixMan__ 41 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I learned it in latin class. It looks like I may have gotten it a bit wrong. It's not that they killed every tenth member of whatever village they were adding to the roman empire that day, but rather than they conscripted some of them as soldiers and then killed every tenth of those who didn't obey. I think the currency point stands though: value the money our soldiers carry, tax collectors will be along for it shortly, welcome to the Roman Empire.