If certain people were the first money owners, then how did they get their money?
How could someone have paid the first money owners with money, if nobody before the first money owners had any money?
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Sign up to join this communityIf certain people were the first money owners, then how did they get their money?
How could someone have paid the first money owners with money, if nobody before the first money owners had any money?
Money developed from commodities or debt indicators (such as debt measuring sticks). Some sort of primitive money was used in pre-history so exact origin is disputed (d’Errico et al. 2012, Ferguson 2008, Glyn 2002).
Hence, what has happened is that people first were exchanging goods for other goods (what in economics we would call barter or what some social anthropologists call gift giving if it’s within some community connected by social relations). At some point either one of the two things happened:
One of the commodities was widely desired (grain, sheep, stones, metals) and people realized they can avoid the problem of double coincidence of wants by just generally accepting that commodity. At a point of time that most people in the community accepted that commodity in payment, the commodity became money. For example, if that commodity was silver everyone with silver had some money from that point on.
If money developed from debt then at some point people started to trade tally sticks/bones that represented some amount of something owed (like grain). In that case anyone who had some tally stick/bone would have money once it would be generally accepted.
In both case the money come from something already preexisting in community. Historically people didn’t just one day invented money, rather some goods gradually became money over time. Hence at the point people developed money, most people already had some money by accumulating some commodities in the past through various ways.
Money represents property, that is assets. If it represents nothing then it's worth nothing. This is why we were on the gold standard for a long time until at some point the economy felt stable enough to let it float somewhat free. But of course everytime investors feel scared there's a rush to gold.
So it's property that defined wealth first. Maybe furs, clothing, a good battle-axe. Maybe a woman - we are talking prehistory here - or a hut of a kind. Maybe a boat - a canoe. Amd of course food. That was wealth. As bartering developed the idea of a common but rare token, that was easily transported but signified a storage of wealth developed. I've heard of cowrie shells being used in places - perhaps the Americas or the Pacific. I don't recall.
when goods exchanging,goods can not shift at same time,it must be one thing give one man in advance,and if record it, we will have one un-standard currency. secend, third one comfirm the "currency" then it will change to standarded.