History of money
The history of money generally describes the historical development of the different forms of money on all continents where people used money as a medium of exchange. In contrast, the historical development of the currency deals with officially recognized types of money and legal tender of the countries and states.
Overview
The exchange is a very early form of trade . In its simplest form, two goods are directly exchanged for one another. Certain goods such as grain , cattle , mussels , silver or gold turned out to be special goods. They were generally valued, available in limited but not too small quantities, and not perishable. These goods could therefore not only be exchanged once for another immediately desired good. They could also be accepted as an "intermediate medium of exchange" in order to later exchange them for the goods actually desired. These goods thus had their first monetary function as a general medium of exchange. The first goods used as a medium of exchange were commodity money . Commodity money consisted either of natural objects ( natural money ), pieces of jewelry ( jewelry money ) or general utility and utility objects as well as farm animals.
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Weight money was used in the European Middle Ages . Precious metals - especially coins made of silver and other metals - were not exchanged according to number or face value, but according to weight. Divided bars, pieces of jewelry or foreign coins were used. Buyer and seller determined the relevant weight by double weighing .
During much of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period, many countries used a silver standard as their official currency . Both fully-fledged Kurant coins (also: Speciesmünzen ) and inferior coins were used in daily payment transactions . Gold coins usually did not have a fixed price compared to silver, but were traded at variable prices. Gold coins were used to pay for expensive goods and as trade coins to pay for trading partners from abroad.
Phases of stable prices and stable value relationships between Kurant and Scheid coins alternated with phases of coin deterioration . For Central Europe, the “ tipper and luffing time ” in the 17th century must be mentioned in particular . The old Reichstaler was melted down during this time and used as a Kippertaler and land coin .
Paper money was invented in China as early as the 11th century during the Song Dynasty . Another form of money, immaterial money , emerged in Italy in the 14th century . Money was deposited with bankers . Payment claims of a customer against a bank were recorded and paid out if requested. These payment claims could be passed on by the depositing customer to other owners, to whom the payment claim was transferred (see bearer paper ).
The first banknotes were also issued in Europe in the Middle Ages . Precursors of this were "notes" , bills of exchange and cash register instructions . Initially, banknotes were not viewed as cash , but were claims for payment against bankers. The banknotes therefore determined which coins were to be paid out in exchange for the banknote.
Modern monetary theoretical approaches were developed through the observation of how the issue and circulation of curant money, coins and banknotes as well as the range of goods and international prices for coinage metals affect economic life.
Most industrialized countries switched to a gold standard in the 19th century . In the German Reich , banknotes and coins were covered by gold and commercial bills and could be exchanged at the relevant private central banks and the Reichsbank .
Triggered by the government's financial needs at the beginning of the First World War, most states in the early 20th century abandoned the need to cover their money with precious metals. Fiat money replaced the covered money . The monetary policy now came to a special task to the price stability ensure and inflation should be avoided.
Money in kind, goods or money
Natural, commodity or useful money is the generic term for early forms of money . This form of money used to be widespread and found in all cultures and epochs. Valuable, useful or beautiful things that served daily needs were considered the general equivalent in commodity form for all kinds of commercial goods.
Examples of forms of money in kind, goods or useful money are stone money in Micronesia , ring money and jewelry money in New Guinea and the South Pacific , snail money or shell money in Africa and China , clothing money ( e.g. fur money ) in North America and metal money in all regions. This also includes cattle, camels, goats, skins , daggers, spades, jewelry rings, special stones, salt and much more. For commodity money belonged to snails, particularly cowrie shells ( cowrie money ) that were in the middle of the 20th century in Africa, South Asia and the South Sea Islands still widely in use. In Tibet the Chinese in 1950 was often paid with barley or wheat until the invasion.
With the discovery that some of these things were passed on over and over again, but no longer needed as useful goods, small and much less valuable replicas of these objects were used as a means of payment. For example, knife money, spade money and the like came about.
The first counterfeit money consisted of counterfeit seashells that were imitated from bone, rock, or jade , around 2,000 BC. When mussels were the first Chinese currency.
These are forms of premium payment transactions. Aspects of countability, storability and easy transportability played a role early on in the choice of material, also with regard to the possibility of storing values. Bars or wires made of bronze or silver, which were of great value and easy to store, met this need .
Development of Coin
From approx. 1000 BC BC money in the form of small knives and spades made of bronze was in use in the society of ancient China, with bronze replicas of cowrie shells previously. At present it still seems that the first coins produced separately from one another in India, China and cities around the Aegean Sea were produced in parallel between 700 and 500 BC. While the coins from the Aegean were stamped (heated and hammered with insignia), the Indian coins (from the Ganges Valley) were made from stamped metal plates and the Chinese coins (first developed in the lowlands) were made from one with holes in the middle Cast bronze lined up together. The various forms and metallurgical processes currently still imply a separate development, strangely enough, however, within the same period, while China's trade with India, Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Aegean region via the Silk Road has only had an underdeveloped start.
The first known ruler to officially set standards of weight and money in the Mediterranean was Pheidon . The minting of sovereign insignia then took place at the end of the 7th century among the Greek cities of Asia Minor, spread quickly to the Aegean parts of the Greek islands and then to the south of Italy at the latest around 500 BC. The first stamped money (with the insignia of an authority in the form of a picture or words) can be seen in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It is an electron - stater a coin turtle, which on the island of Aegina was coined. This coin dates from around 700 BC. Chr.
The first coins were made in the 7th century BC. Beaten by the Lydians . Coins made trading much easier. They had the advantage of always being the same size, weight and appearance and being able to be counted instead of weighed.
In the age of Hellenism , the money economy replaced barter in the area of the former Persian Empire and prevailed as far as northern India, but also in Italy and Carthage. Alexander the Great planned a single currency for his empire; but particularism triumphed: the Hellenistic states and city-states tried to achieve the widest possible distribution of their coins, whereby the Attic monetary standard prevailed and guaranteed a certain monetary unity. Only in the empire of the late Ptolemies did copper coins dominate; there was inflation there. Finally, due to the lack of silver coins in Greece on the one hand, and the silver wealth of the mines of the Roman provinces in Spain on the other, the Roman coins prevailed and replaced the currencies of the Hellenistic world.
In most countries, silver standards initially dominated . Prices were given in the respective currency units defined by the amount of silver. Both curant coins and divisional coins were used in daily payment transactions . During this time, gold coins in circulation had a price for silver currency, which could be read on the price slips of the stock exchanges. Gold coins had the function of “special money” in the inland for the payment of “highest value” goods and served as trading coins to pay for trading partners from abroad.
With the development of coins , phases developed from stable money to phases of coin deterioration such as in the period of the fluff , an early inflation (see Böse Halser ) and mainly in the Kipper and Wipper period in the 17th century. While Kurant coins were often minted from silver or gold, after a long period of time they returned to the production of divisional coins.
According to Gresham's Law , "good money" is displaced in circulation by "bad money" under certain conditions. Of two coins that are recognized as legal tender and have the same face value, an owner will first use the one with a lower content of precious metal as a means of payment. This is "bad money". The coins that are more valuable in terms of metal content are kept by the owner and melted down in order to have a larger number of bad coins minted from them. In this way - or through outflow abroad - the good money disappears more and more from the circulation.
Development of paper money
Paper money originated in China in the 11th century as a substitute for coin money. It was originally not intended as a supplement to coins, but rather to replace them in the event of a lack of coins.
Paper money was not introduced in Europe until much later; for example, the first issue of paper money took place in Spain in 1483 , at that time, however, as a (temporary) replacement for missing coins .
The Amsterdam Exchange Bank began creating banknotes as currency in 1609 , but proceeded very carefully in this process, in that the financial institution ensured that there was sufficient currency reserves at all times for decades .
On July 16, 1661, the Bank of Stockholm , a private central bank, issued the first official banknotes in Europe. The bank got into trouble because too many banknotes were printed.
Paper money was first used on a large scale in France under Treasury Secretary John Law in the brief period from 1718 to 1720 . However, that episode ended in fiasco.
In Germany, the Saxon and Prussian state paper and vault notes of the 18th century were issued as banknotes.
In the 19th century, the banknote became the accepted means of payment for a currency alongside coins. Means of payment such as banknotes and coins were covered by currency reserves and could henceforth be exchanged at any time at the relevant private central banks and the Reichsbank for Kurant coins.
Since then, modern monetary theoretical approaches have attempted to maintain trust in the relevant currency systems .
Intangible money
Immaterial money ( bank money , book money ) already existed with the Romans (proven in excavations in Pompeii and in other cities in Italy at the time of Augustus ). It later developed from check transactions in Italy in the 14th century to its present form. Full-value coins or precious metals were deposited with bankers . Payment claims of a customer against a bank were recorded and paid out if requested.
The book money was posted to the bank account where the money was deposited. It could be debited and paid out at a later time. As a rule, the customer was paid interest . It was also agreed when a payout would be possible. In the case of sight credit , a payment could be requested immediately.
In the 19th century, there was already an exchange of money in cashless payment transactions . In the course of the 20th century, cashless payments developed into a standard, which made transfers possible for everyone. It developed this one interbank trading .
However, book money itself is not a legal tender and is not subject to any acceptance requirements.
Electronic money
Electronic money is a technical advancement of immaterial money. In the case of electronic money, a monetary value is stored in the form of a claim against the issuing body on a data carrier, for example a money card . Here is only a credit, no credit possible. Electronic money is an alternative to cash here.
This form of money must be strictly separated from debit and credit cards . These are not electronic money as they do not have any stored amount of money and are only used as identification to access accounts.
See also
literature
- history
- Niall Ferguson: The Rise of Money: The Currency of History . List, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-548-60988-1 .
- Selma Gebhardt: From cowrie shells to credit cards. Money development in the civilization process . Rosenholz Verlag, Kiel / Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-931665-10-0 .
- Michael North : The money and its history. From the Middle Ages to the present . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38072-7 .
- Michael North : From stocks to customs. A historical lexicon of money . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45002-4 .
- Dieter Schnaas: A short cultural history of money . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7705-5033-3 .
- Wolfram Weimer : History of Money: A Chronicle with Texts and Pictures . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1992, ISBN 3-458-16265-8 .
- Stephen Zarlenga: The Myth of Money. The history of power . Conzett Verlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-905267-00-4 .
- theory
- Friedrich August von Hayek : Denationalization of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Competing Media . Mohr Verlag, Tübingen 1977, ISBN 3-16-340272-0 .
- Bernhard Laum (1924): Holy Money . Semele Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-938869-02-X .
- Ludwig von Mises : Theory of money and the means of circulation . 1912, ISBN 3-428-11882-0 ( mises.org [PDF; 23.1 MB ]).
- Alfred Sohn-Rethel : The money, the face of the apriori . Wagenbach Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-8031-5127-9 .
Web links
- Money Museum of the Deutsche Bundesbank
- Karl Walker: The Money in History . Scan of the edition by Rudolf Zitzmann Verlag, Lauf near Nuremberg, autumn 1959
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerald Görmer: Money economy and silver burial during the 9th to 13th century in the Baltic Sea region. In: Monetary History News. Vol. 41, 2006, ISSN 0435-1835 , pp. 165-167, especially p. 165.
- ^ Daniel R. Headrick: Technology: A World History. 2009, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-988759-0 , pp. 85 ff.
- ^ A b c Ralph Anderegg: Fundamentals of monetary theory and monetary policy , Oldenbourg Verlag
- ↑ Heinz Fengler, Gerhard Gierow, Willy Unger: Transpress lexicon numismatics. Berlin 1976, p. 323. With reference to the following literature: Lenz: About money with primitive peoples. Hamburg 1895; G. Thilenius: Primitive Money In: Archive for Anthropology. Berlin 1920; R. Firth: Primitive Currency. In: Encyclopaedia Britannica. 14th ed, Vol. 6, London 1937; AH Quiggin: A survey of primitive money, The beginnings of currency, With an introduction by AC Haddon. London 1949; P. Sole: Primitive money in its ethnological, historical and economic aspects. London 1949: J. Deutsch: The means of payment of the primitive peoples in Africa. Marburg 1957.
- ^ David Graeber: Debt: The First 5000 Years, Melville 2011. Cf. A History of Debt ( Memento from September 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ D Schaps, The Invention of Coinage in Lydia, in India, and in China , XIV. International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006.
- ↑ The earliest coins of Greece proper , full text on archive.org. Retrieved February 10, 2011.
- ^ Coin images
- ^ Ancient coinage of Aegina , snible.org. Retrieved February 10, 2011.
- ^ Michael Rostovtzeff: Social and economic history of the Hellenistic world. Volume 2, Darmstadt 1998, p. 1036 ff.
- ↑ George A. Selgin, Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage , University of Michigan Press, 2008.
- ↑ Calendar sheet - DW-World
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↑ Goethe
addressed the connection of paper money with war and inflation in Faust. The second part of the tragedy , first act, scene Kaiserliche Pfalz, Lustgarten , 1831. See also: (a) the commentary by Albrecht Schöne with the topics: paper money, money creation , cover for money and bonds , surety (signature of the emperor), (b ) the commentary by Heinz Hamm (1978/1997), pp. 143-145 and (c) the commentary by Theodor Friedrich and Lothar J. Scheithauer (1959/1980, Reclam 7177) on v. 6066 ff, p. 227. Friedrich and Scheithauer attribute the invention of paper money and its introduction in France to the "Scottish money man" John Law (1671–1729).
- ↑ Monetary Policy and Monetary Policy - School Book for Upper Secondary School ( Memento from July 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Deutsche Bundesbank , p. 52.
