| 1
pound note of 1955-60. These words date back to goldsmiths' notes
of the 17th century. When Britain left the gold standard in 1931
the words ceased to have any significance. |
| Karl
Marx from a 100 Mark note of the German Democratic Republic, 1975.
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Money as we know
it represents many forms of payment. In the beginning trade and barter
with natural
objects was the only form of payment. With the development
of a third object equal to the value of the agreement in question accepted
by both participants as a means of payment, a primitive form of money
was founded. This kind of money originally had the function of jewelry
or a status object. Eventually this form got away from it's social context
when it became a measure for the worth and price of services, work or
rents. Other than actual cash there today many forms of payment. Why is
the effectiveness of money believed? Is money not fiction? Does it not
represent a material worth that is nonexistent?
At the height of
the middle ages in the 13th and 14th century, scholars busied themselves
with the theory of money. Thomas von Aquin (1225-1274) who studied the
development and function of money, wrote the book "De regimine principium"
(About the Principle of Rule). Nicholas Oresmius (1320-1382) wrote in
his "Tractatus de origine, iue nec non et mutationibus monetarum"
(Traktat on the Origins, Law and about the Change of Money) about the
affects money had on history and society.
As time went
on different and controversial theories developed.In
the 19th century Karl Marx (1818-1883) created a theory that analyzed
the entity and origin of money in his books "Das Kapital" and "Zur
Kritik der politischen Ökonomie" (A Critique on the Political Economy).
His later "Historischer und Dialektischer Materialismus" (Historical
and Dialectical Materialism) became the basis of his Marxist Theory.
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