400-year timeline of chrono-lucropia & attempts to dispel it.

Bruce Middleton

The concept of chrono-lucropia
Chrono-lucropia is my word for a trait, and a cognitive defect: mistaken faith in money measure as though it measured value, over time spans long enough for significant variation in the value of money. A premise of its diagnosis as a defect is the definition of value: the measure of how much things matter to people. People manifesting chrono-lucropia make bad decisions, by their own criteria, without noticing: tricked by faith in an unstable ruler (always shrinking, in our era, though that hasn't always been the case).

The defect does have another name: "money illusion", coined by Irving Fisher. However, that term is a century old, and has become neutered over time; as will be shown, whole populations think they understand it, while being themselves massively chrono-lucropic. (Also it lacks mention of time, which makes it structurally illucid: it might be a deprecation of undue concern about wealth where experience is what really matters, for example.)

1626: Sir Henry Spelman
Exactly 400 years ago, in 1626, Sir Henry Spelman published the first part of his Glossarium Archaiologicum - a dictionary of the mongrel usages which had evolved in the British Isles in preceding centuries. It was in Latin, and has never been translated - but a striking sentence was, in 1769, by William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England:

Our ancient Saxon laws nominally punished theft with death, if above the value of twelvepence... in the ninth year of Henry the First... all persons guilty of larceny above the value of twelvepence were directed to be hanged; which law continues in force to this day... the punishment of grand larceny, or the stealing above the value of twelvepence (which sum was the standard in the time of king Athelstan, eight hundred years ago) is at common law regularly death. Which, considering the great intermediate alteration in the price or denomination of money, is undoubtedly a very rigorous constitution, and made Sir Henry Spelman (above a century since, when money was at twice its present rate) complain that, while every thing else was risen in its nominal value and become dearer, the life of man had continually grown cheaper.

In the time of King Athelstan, 12 pence would buy you a sturdy ox. The law from that time being still on the books in 1801, 13-year-old Andrew Benning was [~~hanged~~ June 17: searching for numbers, I learned that death sentences were routinely pronounced, but almost always commuted for minors by this time - a web sleuth found that Branning (the actual name) was transported to Australia] for stealing... a spoon. The 12-penny threshold for death was finally repealed in 1827 - having been in force through an era in which the value of money dropped by a factor of about 200.

1691: Sir William Petty

(some biography, too rich to pass on): An intriguing low-born but studious character, Petty's life took a turn for the better at 14, when he broke his leg. He had been cabin boy on a merchantman, but the crew dumped him on a French shore to shift for himself. He found some Jesuits, who were so impressed with his Latin that they admitted him to their college. He supported himself by teaching navigation and English, and was soon reading Vesalius with Hobbes in Paris, and then in London becoming a member of the Invisible College which morphed into the Royal Society. Professor of Medicine at Oxford, surveyor in Ireland, and "the most rational man" that Samuel Pepys ever heard speak.

Money is understood to be the uniform measure of value and rule for the value of all commodities ... Accidents... make Silver rise and fall and consequently take from the Aptitude for being an uniform, steady Rule and Measure of all other things.

1707: Bishop Fleetwood

At Oxford, rules written in 1440 were still in force & deprived students of fellowships if their income was more than 5 pounds per year; one of them begged for help from Bishop Fleetwood, a known expert on historical prices. He anonymously published Chronicon Preciosum - a 220-page book full of tables with quaint descriptions of fat geese and sheep shorn or unshorn, tracing the value of money. He concluded that it had gone down by a factor of about 6 - and Oxford changed the rule.

whoever swears, swears to things that are signified by words, and not to mere words... when different Things are signified by the same Word, then he who knows that difference of Things, cannot help giving such Word its proper and intended signification... the Value of a Pound is truly a Pound, and not its mere Name.
Regard both may and must be had, to the different value of money at different Times
I am now come to speak to the Price of Corn and other Commodities; which is (whether you know it or not) the readiest way to the Solution of your... most material Question... how much of the money now current, will be required to purchase the same quantity of Meat, Drink, and Cloth.
30 Pound now, would be no more than equivalent to 5 l. in the reign of H. VI... I can see no Cause, why 28, or 30l per An. should now be accounted, a greater Estate, than V l. was heretofore, betwixt 1440, and 1460.
I have but one thing more to offer to your Consideration, from the Accounts I have given of the different price of Corn and other Commodities... be, above all things, careful, how you make any Composition or Agreement, for any long space of years, to receive a certain Price of Money... altho' for the present it may seem a tempting Bargain, and a profitable Exchange... You know not what Time may bring forth... nor what great Mischiefs you, unwittingly, may do your Successors.
And thus, you see, that the Consideration of these small Matters, may be of Use, in Things of great importance.

1738: William Douglass

A Scottish doctor who had emigrated to Boston, Douglass was an avid participant in the pamphlet culture of the era, with two notable pamphlets about paper currencies, a novelty and hot topic at the time. His remark identifying what I call clawback is the first we have which identifies it as real principal:

The Quantity of Paper Credit sinks the Value of the Principal , and the Lender to save himself , is obliged to lay the growing Loss of the Principal , upon the Interest .

He is cited twice in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations - unfortunately not for this.

1780: Massachusetts issues indexed notes

During the American Revolution, the legislators of Massachusetts were concerned about a looming injustice to their soldiers: their pay was in the form of promissory notes, to be redeemable when peace came; but wars cause inflation, and pay specified in money would likely be worth much less by the time it could be redeemed. So notes were issued with an index actually inscribed on them:

Both Principal and Interest to be paid in the then current Money of said State , in a greater or less Sum, according as Five Bushels of Corn, Sixty — eight Pounds and four — seventh Parts of a Pound of Beef, Ten Pounds of Sheeps Wool, and Sixteen Pounds of Sole Leather shall then cost, more or less than One Hundred and Thirty Pounds of Current Money, at the then current Prices of said Articles

1822: Joseph Lowe proposes a national index to establish a unit of wealth

It took Lowe just 15 straightforward pages to explain his Plan for lessening the Injury arising from the Fluctuation of Prices, in a 30-page chapter entitled The Value of Money, in a 524-page book entitled The Present State of England in Regard to Agriculture, Trade and Finance: With a Comparison of the Prospects of England and France.

The section identifies the goal of tracking money's value

If we proceed to analyze the use of money, whether for national or individual purposes, we shall find it resolve itself into "the power of purchase," or, in other words, into the power of procuring articles for consumption. It is consequently of much more importance in all contracts of duration to look to the value than to the numerical amount of a given sum.

and the method: a price index. It ended with words that read strangely two centuries later:

the rule, that prospective engagements should be framed so as to maintain their bona fide value, whatever be the value of money, is so equitable, and apparently so easy of execution, that there seems no little difficulty in accounting for its not yet having found its way into practice.

Lowe died nine years later, unheralded and impoverished, partly supported by James Mill, who had been a schoolmate in Scotland and remained a lifelong friend. A strange sidelight on this is the role of John Stuart Mill - who at age 14 in 1821 spent several months in Europe, including a long stay with Lowe - who was in France finishing his book. Nonetheless, when Mill got engaged in political economy, he sided with the camp of Lord Overstone, who objected to the proposal of indexing based it seems (to state an impression based on brief descriptions) on a simple misconception: that the idea was to fix the value of money, rather than simply to measure it.

-------------- leaping ahead -------------------

1969: Churchill Falls hydro megaproject in Labrador: 65-year contract not indexed
The contract, between Hydro-Quebec and the province of Newfoundland & Labrador, specified rates for 65 years after project completion - which turned out to mean 2041 - at a currency-measure price starting at 0.3₵ / kWh, then actually dropping to 0.2₵/ kWh for the final 25 years. Once N&L realized with horror what they had done, it became a generational grievance; but Quebec had a contract, and stuck to it until 2024 - when an expansion of the project had entered the picture, and gave N&L some leverage. Inflation, 1969-2024, was over 700%. In fact it would have been a bad deal even if indexed; the initial 0.3₵ adjusted for inflation would be 2.5₵, whereas the price in the new agreement (not yet finalized, but retroactive to Jan 1 2025 once signed) is 5.9₵ - jumping overnight by a factor of 29.5. Under the old contract, N&L got $2 billion for power that Quebec exported, mainly to New England and New York, for $28 billion.

--------------- pending ---------------------

Scrope
MP, vulcanologist, prolific pamphleteer. 1832 pamphlet, 1833 book; routine

G.R. Porter
head of the statisical department of the Board of Trade. Maintained a 50-item price index, 1833-37. Published routine indexing proposal 1838.

Jevons

Bagehot

Francis Amasa Walker, 1878, 1883; Alfred Marshall, 1879, 1887; Simon Newcomb, 1885.

Irving Fisher

Modigliani

NMD

AMIRS

Bruce Webb

Friedman

Fed staffers

Shiller, Schultze

-----------------------------

1981-82

Stenason

Kesselman, Helliwell, Clark

Vancity, Peter Cook

Bossons, Anderson, Riddell & Critchley

effective chrono-lucropia

A less overwrought expression might be "insensitivity to inflation".

No, there's more to it than that. The point is that culture smuggles lethal nonsense into our skulls. There's mechanism and history in that view. Hanging children because, hey, it's the law. Clearly, "insensitivity to inflation" does not encompass that; and it was put in front of you, as part of what this is about. Overwrought, you think? Well, I don't think so. I think several thousand Canadians were condemned to death when Chrystia Freeland dumped $30 billion dollars - severely needed elsewhere - into mortgage relief - which indexing would have massively bettered, for free - as I explained in an email, to which as expected there was no reply. There's sound actuarial knowledge behind the estimate; roughly speaking, $5,000,000 government dollars = 1 life.

Would you agree that wisdom is being governed by understanding the systems we are part of, and the systems which are parts of us? Governed by awareness of the real causes of our experience, and the real effects of our actions - and inactions? If you have a better definition, I'm happy to listen.

Can you imagine feeling responsible for thousands of deaths you failed to prevent? Am I overwrought to speak like that? Is it preposterous to suggest that financially illiterate professors and cabinet ministers can cause kilodeaths without ever noticing? Can you contemplate the possibility that culture has narcotized you (and other "normal" people) and made you underwrought? That your image of normalcy (for which you are not to blame; just history happening) is tragically toxic?

Perhaps I should mention that my worldview took a swerve when I was 7, and was swarmed by deliberately maimed beggar children at a tram stop in Calcutta. In your terms, I guess I've been overwrought ever since; I certainly stopped trusting adults, which changes the trajectory.

I agree with the suggestion for use of plainer language. Make the case for the astonishing significance within the text, but be as plain as possible in the terminology, else I fear you’ll lose the vast majority of your potential future audience.

I consider myself fairly erudite, and a connoisseur of etymology, and yet the phrase “effective chrono-lucropia” is very nearly opaque to me. I still don’t understand what the ‘effective’ part is meant to signify, and my best guess at dissecting “chrono-lucropia” is: chrono=time, lucre=wealth or money, opia=seeing. If anything, the concept under discussion would seem to be ineffective time-moneyseeing as far as I can tell? In that almost everyone is naively terrible (not effective) at seeing money through time?

I included the above, not seeking explanation, but rather attempting to demonstrate how illusion of transparency and surprising inferential distances play out for a reader new to the topic. I would imagine other potential readers may have different confusions. These are meant to be supporting evidence in favor of “plain-language terminology should be preferred”.

I appreciate your grace and tact, and accept the diagnosis. Deleted the paragraph.

Andrew Benning was hanged for stealing... a spoon.

Is this real? I couldn't find any info on it other than a jstor article behind a paywall, which seems to just briefly mention it? I couldn't drill down to see if there was a better source

That article is easily found on Libgen; mirror.

link added (https://time.com/archive/6829779/national-affairs-capital-punishment-a-fading-practice/)

The 12-penny threshold for death was finally repealed in 1827 - having been in force through an era in which the value of money dropped by a factor of about 200.

This by itself doesn't mean much. You could have had 0 inflation for all of this period and a sudden 200x inflation at the end of this period shortly before the law gets repealed.