Text A Money
Money is one of man's greatest inventions and the fact that all but the least developed of human societies use money indicates that it is an essential tool of civilisation. In the absence of some form of money, exchange may take the form of barter which is the direct exchange of goods and services for goods and services. Barter will serve man's requirements quite adequately when he provides most of his needs directly and relies upon market exchanges for very few of the things he wants. As the extent of specialisation increases, the barter system proves very inefficient and frustrating. In the simplest societies each family will provide by its own efforts most of its needs and perhaps some small surpluses. A farmer will exchange any small surplus of food, wool or hides for the surpluses of other producers. But this system of exchange becomes very cumbersome as economic activities become more specialised. A specialist metal worker must seek out a large number of other specialists in order to obtain, by barter, the variety of goods he needs to satisfy his daily wants. The great disadvantage of barter is the fact that it depends upon a 'double coincidence of wants'. A hunter who wants to exchange his skins for corn must find, not merely a person who wants skins, but someone who wants skin and has a surplus of corn for disposal. The alternative is to exchange his skins for some other article and they carry out a series of similar exchanges until he finally gets his corn. Time and energy which could be devoted to production is spent on a laborious system of exchange. Quite early in his history man discovered a much more convenient arrangement. The use of some commodity as a medium of exchange makes exchange triangular and removes the major difficulty of the barter system. If a commodity is generally acceptable in exchange for goods and services, it is money. A producer now exchanges his goods for money and the money can be exchanged for whatever goods and services he requires. The functions of money 1. A medium of exchange. As we have already explained, the use of money as a medium of exchange makes possible a great extenuation of the principle of specialisation. In an advanced society the use of money allows us to exchange hours of labour for an amazing variety of goods and services. We can exchange, for example, two weeks' labour for a holiday abroad just as easily as we can exchange it for a piece of furniture or a year's rent on a television set. Such exchanges are taken for granted yet they would be inconvenient without the use of money.
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