I guess my point was that if our societal structures collapsed, neither gold nor silver would be of much benefit to anyone. If a rich person had accumulated a massive amount in his or her treasury, it wouldn't do them a bit of good if the society that decided to agree about what its exchange value was no longer existed. At that point, food, water, shelter, land to grow food on, needed skills and knowledge, and physical labor would be the only things that had real value. People have to agree that things like gold and silver have exchange value. It's all a matter of what people agree to do. With the system we have now, people agree that trust in the monetary system is the only thing that the exchange depends on, so it has an agreed upon value. If the system collapsed, none of what we use as money would have any exchange value, but neither would gold or silver.