Minimum wage in 1964.

[Darwin333]

In 1964 that was still true, but the writing was on the wall -- the price of silver was rising, and would blow past the "fiat breakeven point" of $1.38 or so by the end of the decade.

That's the entire reason they stopped using it.

This is a pattern that repeats itself throughout history. The name of the British currency comes from the fact that once upon a time, it represented one pound of silver. Today, a pound of silver is worth over 275 fiat British pounds.

In 1964 that was still true, but the writing was on the wall -- the price of silver was rising, and would blow past the "fiat breakeven point" of $1.38 or so by the end of the decade.

That's the entire reason they stopped using it.

This is a pattern that repeats itself throughout history. The name of the British currency comes from the fact that once upon a time, it represented one pound of silver. Today, a pound of silver is worth over 275 fiat British pounds.

Why wouldn't you consider that a "failure" of hard money? If it was a fiat currency and they switched to hard money I assume you would consider it a "failure" of fiat currency.

There's no inherent reason that it can't be both. That is, unless the currency only has value because a government says it does.

It has value because society says so. It has value because you can walk into a store and trade it for goods and services. It might be backed by the government but society, at the end of the day at least, sets its true "value". Gold and other commodities work in exactly the same way.