The Origin of Money as the Ability to Obtain Goods and Services

Mehdi Chowdhury ()
Additional contact information
Mehdi Chowdhury: Bournemouth University

Chapter Chapter 4 in Money and Inflation, 2024, pp 35-53 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract The chapter provides examples of the origin of the ability, including historical ones. However, it also notes that though examples from the history are useful, the question of the origin of money is rather about the analysis of the context that provides someone the ability to obtain goods and services from others. In a given context, the ability arises due to a game-like situation, where the outcome of the action of someone depends on the action of others. The chapter analyses both market-based and non-market-based transactions, and identifies that the creation of the ability is finally down to the use of the human body and mind. In a market, the parties can negotiate to exchange the produce of their body and mind. In a non-market-based situation, a party, such as a dictator can use the body and mind of the followers to extract goods and services from the rest of the population. In a one-sided transaction, a party may receive nothing or a very negligible amount in return. But it is the context that makes the money, i.e. the ability possible, and that may disappear or come back in changing contexts.

Keywords: Market; Game; Human body and mind; Human biology; State; Central banks; Constitutions; Slavery; Labour camp; Force; Power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-52356-4_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031523564

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-52356-4_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().