ABSTRACT
The form of the currency is important only to the extent that its value is agreed. Over time, many commodities have served as currencies, including gold and silver. Other forms of commodity currency have also been used, such as wheat, nails and cowry shells, when gold and silver were unavailable, or when the scarcity of these commodities, compared to the demand for them, made them highly desirable. The use of a paper currency that has no such link is very unusual, and in the case of the US dollar the delinking of this paper currency from an underlying commodity value has produced important changes in the global political economy. The chapter discusses the relationship between currency, oil and nation states in the global marketplace. What the debate over peak oil points to is the reality that national economies are hostage to oil, and that oil has become the new commodity measurement of value.
