Shinji Takagi discusses currency system used in Alma 11.
Shinji Takagi, "Money and Prices in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies 61, no. 2 (2022): 5-30
VI. Conclusion
In this paper, I have discussed the operational aspects of the Nephite system of fixed prices for gold, silver, and all kinds of grain (Alma 11:3–19), based on internal evidence, economic logic, and historical precedents from antiquity. I have argued, among other things, that most of the metallic weights described in Alma 11 were sufficiently light and were clearly intended for handling by hand. These weighted metals therefore had all the economic characteristics of coinage, making it appropriate to designate them as coins. Further, once it is accepted that denominations were binary and the weight scale was unitary for both gold and silver, internal logic implies that the gold-silver mint ratio was 16:1. Remarkably, this falls within the well-attested range of gold-silver prices observed over several millennia of recorded human history.
The Nephite system appears unusual in fixing the relative prices for precious metals and all kinds of grain, but it has a number of historical precedents in ancient societies. The clue to its noneconomic nature can be surmised from the lack of any role quality considerations play in the valuation of agricultural products. I have argued, based on similar systems from antiquity, that the system of fixed prices was likely not an economic institution but an accounting framework in which the monetary values of agricultural products were assessed for tax, census, or other administrative purposes. The Nephite system was also unusual in fixing the relative price of gold against silver. Rarely do we find a bimetallic monetary standard with a fixed gold-silver parity in antiquity. Such a system is known to be unstable, and I am inclined to think that it soon degenerated into monometalism based on gold. If such a bimetallic standard was durable at all, it must be that the market for precious metals was limited either by a government monopoly over production or by thin trading attributable to the society’s agrarian and largely nonmonetized nature.
Given these informed albeit speculative conjectures about the operation of the secular institution described in Alma 11, one must be careful not to be hasty in concluding that it did not involve coinage. It is extremely unlikely that the economic, if not numismatic, concept of coinage was unknown during Lehi’s lifetime, and even if coinage had been unknown, it would not necessarily follow that monetary metals did not assume the economic functions of coinage over the first four centuries of Nephite civilization. The heading change made in Alma 11 from “Nephite coinage” to “The Nephite monetary system” was not only unwarranted but also inappropriate from the standpoint of the generally accepted nomenclature of monetary economics. The term “monetary system,” which usually refers to a set of laws, regulations, and institutions involved in a nation’s payment system, is too elaborate a concept to apply to an ancient society with primitive institutions, especially when so little information is provided.
An objection may be lodged to considering Alma 11 as the description of a coinage system on the basis of scanty archaeological evidence that coinage existed in ancient America. But such an objection is equally applicable to considering the same passage as a description of bullion and ingots as money. Ancient cash hoards in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East typically contain both coins and ingots. It is almost certain that precious metals were used as money in ancient American civilizations, whatever form they took. When the Spanish conquistadores arrived, they found Mexicans regularly using gold dust as money. It may well be that, in the future, ancient hoards containing coins and ingots will be excavated somewhere in the Americas. For the time being, the best answer I can give is that the Nephite economy was agrarian and largely nonmonetized, restricting the circulation of coins, if any, and limiting their use largely to urban, commercial transactions.