Invention of Standardized Money :: essays research papers

There were many reasons for the invention of standardized money. First, nobody wanted to carry 30 pounds of barley to the trade city that could have been 100 miles away. Second, it was difficult to determine the true cost of different goods. For example, if somebody wanted to buy milk for his family, it would almost be impossible to figure out a fair exchange for grain. Finally, the barter system limited the people who would trade with each other. Not everybody would want to purchase milk or grain. In sum, there were too many complications and inefficiencies in a barter economy. People in ancient times developed the concept of money around the year 2500 B.C. Some historians argue that it may have been even earlier. The first form of ?money? was silver in Mesopotamia. Silver functioned just like the money we use today. It had a standard, it was weighed in shekels so that one could determine the value of the silver in relation to its weight. Today, the way we determine the value of our money is by looking at the number in the corners of a bill. Like our money today, silver was easily portable compared to goods like milk and grain. The flaws with the early silver money system were evident. Somebody could easily take another alloy metal and tell the merchant that it was silver. In other words, counterfeiting was relatively easy. As a result, a merchant would want know person that was offering their silver in order to prevent fraud. There were other standards of money in different places. There were different clay tokens. People who were not as wealthy as those who paid in silver paid in less valuable metals like copper, tin, and lead, but mostly barley. Eventually, merchants thought of an idea. If most of their customers paid in a certain currency, then they would therefore take only that specific currency. This idea started to slowly kill off other currencies. By killing off currencies they were making silver the dominate currency. Invention of Standardized Money :: essays research papers There were many reasons for the invention of standardized money. First, nobody wanted to carry 30 pounds of barley to the trade city that could have been 100 miles away. Second, it was difficult to determine the true cost of different goods. For example, if somebody wanted to buy milk for his family, it would almost be impossible to figure out a fair exchange for grain. Finally, the barter system limited the people who would trade with each other. Not everybody would want to purchase milk or grain. In sum, there were too many complications and inefficiencies in a barter economy. People in ancient times developed the concept of money around the year 2500 B.C. Some historians argue that it may have been even earlier. The first form of ?money? was silver in Mesopotamia. Silver functioned just like the money we use today. It had a standard, it was weighed in shekels so that one could determine the value of the silver in relation to its weight. Today, the way we determine the value of our money is by looking at the number in the corners of a bill. Like our money today, silver was easily portable compared to goods like milk and grain. The flaws with the early silver money system were evident. Somebody could easily take another alloy metal and tell the merchant that it was silver. In other words, counterfeiting was relatively easy. As a result, a merchant would want know person that was offering their silver in order to prevent fraud. There were other standards of money in different places. There were different clay tokens. People who were not as wealthy as those who paid in silver paid in less valuable metals like copper, tin, and lead, but mostly barley. Eventually, merchants thought of an idea. If most of their customers paid in a certain currency, then they would therefore take only that specific currency. This idea started to slowly kill off other currencies. By killing off currencies they were making silver the dominate currency.