On the Origin of Money

By Carl Menger

On the Origins of Money is a discussion of the history of money and currency, from its crudest form as cowrie shells, animal pelts, and salt in early societies to the coin and paper money we use today. Rather than focusing on the type or shape of the money, author and economist Carl Menger looks at the reasons behind monetary exchange and why money is so valuable (or where it gets its inherent value). His argument centers on the "saleableness" of the goods or commodities being sold-in other words, the more "saleable" (or valuable or in demand) an item is, the more money it is worth. Hence, money gets its value from the objects it pays for. This short work is an insightful look into the history and value of money for any student or professional economist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cosimo Classics
• Release date: Dec 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781616409746

Carl Menger

CARL MENGER (1840-1921) was an Austrian economist, scholar, and author. He founded and taught at the Austrian School of Economics, where he authored several publications, mostly about the theory of marginal utility, which was directly in opposition to the then-favored cost-production theory of value, and which sparked controversy with his German colleagues. Before he retired from teaching to focus on research and study, Menger was appointed as the head of a commission to reform the Austrian monetary system. It was during this time that he wrote several well-known pieces about the purpose and origin of money and capital.

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Notes

I. Introduction

There is a phenomenon which has from of old and in a peculiar degree attracted the attention of social philosophers and practical economists, the fact of certain commodities (these being in advanced civilizations coined pieces of gold and silver, together subsequently with documents representing those coins) becoming universally acceptable media of exchange. It is obvious even to the most ordinary intelligence, that a commodity should be given up by its owner in exchange for another more useful to him. But that every economic unit in a nation should be ready to exchange his goods for little metal disks apparently useless as such, or for documents representing the latter, is a procedure so opposed to the ordinary course of things, that we cannot well wonder if even a distinguished thinker like Savigny finds it downright ‘mysterious’.

It must not be supposed that the form of coin, or document, employed as current-money, constitutes the enigma in this phenomenon. We may look away from these forms and go back to earlier stages of economic development, or indeed to what still obtains in countries here and there, where we find the precious metals in a uncoined state serving as the medium of exchange, and even certain other commodities, cattle, skins, cubes of tea, slabs of salt, cowrie-shells, etc.; still we are confronted by this phenomenon, still we have to explain why it is that the economic man is ready to accept a certain kind of commodity, even if he does not need it, or if his need of it is already supplied, in exchange for all the goods he has brought to market, while it is none the less what he needs that he consults in the first instance, with respect to the goods he intends to acquire in the course of his transactions.

And hence there runs, from the first essays of reflective contemplation of a social phenomena down to our own times, an uninterrupted chain of disquisitions upon the nature and specific qualities of money in its relation to all that constitutes traffic. Philosophers, jurists, and historians, as well as economists, and even naturalists and mathematicians, have dealt with this notable problem, and there

Reviews for On the Origin of Money

[Dominique Harris · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Gives you a brief overview as to how and why money changed from the Gold currency to this paper money that a few select men had access to creating. It’s definitely a place I would start with.

[tendai3shava · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An interesting book that gives i depth knowledge of money.

[Amun-Ra Amani · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not bad. It provides a general concept and how and why money came into being and it's primary function.