When did the concept of "money" appear and why was it needed

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

In the time of primitive people, the concept of "money", as we all know, did not exist. Even the very definition of "personal property" was very vague. Several skins, a stick burned at the stake, a stone axe. The main values of prehistoric man - food, fire and shelter - were communal.

Where everything came from

With the evolution of man, his ability to influence the world around him also changed. He created more and more material values: clothes and shoes, hunting and fishing equipment, dishes and much more. With the advent of a clear boundary "mine - not mine", apparently, barter appeared. You to me - I to you. The value of things was conditional and relative and depended on many related factors. Fresh meat was valued more than stale meat, but dried meat was even more valuable, because its shelf life was much longer than that of fresh meat. The more items appeared, the more often there was a need for a certain reference point, a measure of the value of this or that thing.

Natural money

Of course, our distant ancestors did not immediately reach banknotes with five degrees of security. The first "money" were some items that could be directly used in everyday life. For example, s alt was an extremely common "currency" in many regions - a product that is certainly useful. This also includes cocoa, coffee, tea bars … Rice was used as money in the Celestial Empire, and in Iceland - dried fish. But in some countries, the concept of "money" extended to beautiful shells or just stones with a hole in the middle.

Metal was a transitional link between natural money and monetary systems. Copper and iron - the first metals that mankind mastered, were widely used in everyday life, and were a value in themselves. From a bar of iron, which was obtained for a pile of animal skins, it was possible to forge an ax, a plow or a sword.

But as the mining of these metals increased, their value began to decrease, and something was needed that had a higher cost with less weight and size. Two metals became a universal measure - silver and gold. Despite the fact that iron and bronze were more practical, people were fascinated by the beauty and durability of precious metals. The second reason for their widespread use was both their ubiquity and "rare earth". After all, it is well known that the more difficult a thing is to obtain, the more it is valued. With the acquisition of gold and silver of their "legitimate places", the concept and functions of money were finally formed.

Cashsystems

As the commodity exchange became more complicated and the state structures that regulated it appeared, there was a need for a uniform system, the basis of which was, in fact, the monetary units themselves - coins. Most often, these were metal discs made of gold, silver and copper, although sometimes there were also money made from precious, semi-precious and ordinary stones.

The very first coins were, in fact, just a plate of metal with a "seal" that certified that it contained a certain amount of gold, silver or copper (iron and other metals were used, but much less often). In the future, the coins began to improve, acquired a face value and turned into a monetary system. Actually, the concept of "money" for many of us is associated more with the organization of the financial and monetary system than with specific banknotes.

With the complication of commodity-money settlements, the coins became more and more differentiated - in one system there could be more than a dozen different denominations. Weight, dimensions, metal content in each of them was regulated. As we can see, the concept and types of money are constantly becoming more complex and improved.

Money cash and not so much

We mean that cashless payments are the brainchild of our computer age, when most of the financial transactions occur without the physical movement of money masses. In fact, the first banks, and, accordingly, bank receipts, appeared in ancient Babylon, therefore, the concept of cashmoney and cashless payments are almost as ancient as money itself.

Paper money

The next important milestone in the history of money and the development of monetary systems was the appearance of banknotes. They appeared in China in the 10th century, but they did not become widespread in the world, since paper was at that time too expensive and difficult to manufacture. Paper banknotes began their triumphal march around the world in the 15th century, with the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. Since then, paper money began to quickly replace metal coins - they were cheaper, more practical and lighter.

Initially, the value of each paper bill was clearly fixed in the precious metal - for each banknote it was possible to get a certain amount of gold or silver. In the future, as inflation increased and, most importantly, the emergence of the banking system with its concept of credit, the "value" of paper notes decreased, until it was finally untied from precious metals. The concept of "money" from something material and tangible has become almost an abstraction, something like a mathematical function.

Today, the main measure of value is the so-called reserve currency - the generally recognized, most used in international settlements. The first such currency was the British pound, and after 1944 - the US dollar.