Also, why would a currency with a fixed, finite supply be any good to stimulate growth in an economy? Seems to me that a constantly expanding fiat base (like blueberries) makes far more sense. Especially if every blueberry-grower/banker made sure everyone who got those blueberries as a basis for trade agreed not to inflate their expanding currency by selling their goods at a lower rate than profit margins require, with the blueberryman/banker agreeing to pay the profit from his infinite supply of blueberries. Wow. Expanding currencies aren't necessarily inflating currencies? MADNESS!

Here, I’ll just say that I wasn’t aiming for the “Diamond-Water Paradox” with my gold-bread argument. That’s why I put the specific scenario of a famine. Although maybe an individual’s answer would be “yes” to a bread-for-gold exchange if we went deeper into the scenario, my point was to show that all tastes and preferences are subjective. It was a weak example, but sufficient for my basic point.

I don’t doubt that gold would emerge as the dominant currency in a private system. If a consensus emerged, even though I don’t like gold, I’d (happily) use it. That doesn’t change the subjective nature of its value. If I commit to gold and then everyone else decides they want to use blueberries as the preferred currency, I’m switching to blueberries rather than clinging to gold as valuable.

Obviously blueberries would be a poor currency choice since anyone can grow them and the supply would grow rapidly. Inflation from the ground. I accept that there are objective criteria for choosing a medium of exchange. Those criteria (supply is fixed) make gold objectively better than other items. But the supply of oil, copper, etc is also fixed. Why gold over those?

You’re still tap-dancing around the core issue: gold only has value because people say it has value (or expect other people to say it has value).

No, he’s specifically stating that that isn’t the core issue. Fiat currency has value solely due to government coercion. If the government disappeared tomorrow, so would the value of its currency. Gold would retain a strong value sans government.

The debate is instead whether it is better, in an advanced global economy to argue for a government that cannot debase gold or one that will not debase its currency.

You forgot the third possibility: a government that will debase its currency as often and as much as it thinks it can get away with.

Neither gold nor anything else can ever have “intrinsic value.” In that sense gold is definitely indistinguishable from fiat currency and there is definitely such a thing as a “gold fetishist.”

The difference between gold and fiat money is that a government cannot debase gold. I know of no libertarian who denies that.

The debate is instead whether it is better, in an advanced global economy to argue for a government that cannot debase gold or one that will not debase its currency. I continue to support the latter because I believe the former is simply unworkable.