Talk:History of money

Creation of money

The a article doesn't explain how money is created through debt. Brian Pearson 15:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The use of double entry accounting is not a thing of the history of money, it is at best a very recent development.

Money of account had originally been a single entry accounting system, and debt was not used to create it until around the 1900s AD. Christopher Theodore (talk) 01:23, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

ALL Money is debt, period.

This article is so full of misinformation I'm not sure where to start. All money is a debt of the issuer, whether its stamp on metal, paper, wood, makes no difference at all. The history of coinage is not the same as the history of money. Vilhelmo (talk) 03:21, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

You say that money is dept. But if I have some gold and go to the bank and get some money for it, where is the debt? Actually, there is none.

We also say that a state owns the national bank all the money. But is it true? I doubt it, because a state can't have any debt. It's one of the main purposes of a state to finance infrastructure, schools, aso. In fact people do some work and get paid, either directly from a state or from a private person. So there is no dept.

Debt exists only if you give money for nothing (this is usually called loan or "credit"), or if you do some work and don't get the money (this is debt in common sense). But it makes no sense to distinguish between the national bank and a state, a national bank can't operate independently, the politics and the currency are totally connected. If not, you see what happens in Europe right now: The system crashes. The solution would be either one united European government (actually like in the USA!) or getting back the national currencies.

I repeat it: The separation of religion and state is very useful, but the separation of national bank and state isn't useful at all. It's rather a practical joke. It's just talking...blablah "debt everywhere"... very unreal.

Conclusion: NO money is debt if it's no credit/loan. Period. --178.197.224.225 (talk) 18:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Positive entries on a ledger are 'money of account': money.

Negative entries on the ledger are 'debt of account': debt

A negative number is NEVER a positive number.

People need to stop con-fusing these terms that are diametrically opposed.

Debt is NOT money, money is NOT debt.

Single entry accounting, on a ledger at a city state's temple/treasury, recording a deposit of grain, created money of account for the depositor. This is before deposit tokens not made of metal or metal tokens (coinage) were even created. Christopher Theodore (talk) 01:43, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Further, the 'debt of account' in the history of money was not a monetary debt owed, it was the assets deposited at the treasury that were owed.

A shekel was a term for a measured weight before it was a silver coin. i.e. ounce, pound, litter, etc...

If I deposited 2000 shekels of *barley* grain in Babylon, I would be given 2000 silver coins and could redeem them in 2000 *shekels* of wheat grain, or take them to the market, trade them for goods and services and those people could come and redeem these silver coins for grains. Christopher Theodore (talk) 02:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

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- "but if I have some gold and go to the bank and get some money for it, where is the debt? What does selling gold or anything have anything to do with the nature of money?

-"because a state can't have any debt" What? Why would you think such a thing when a brief glance at reality proves it false?

The rest of your comment is gibberish. Vilhelmo (talk) 14:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

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If I possess a 10-euro note, who do I owe? Who owes me? If it is an asset to me, I can expect to exchange it on demand for gold or other goods and services. When I do so, I exchange one asset to another. That 10-euro note never becomes a thing that is promised to anyone else until I contract a good or service. D. F. Schmidt (talk) 12:39, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

ATTENTION! ERROR - The History of Money is NOT the History of Coinage

The first sentence contains a major error. It reads,

"The history of money begins around 2500 years ago with the first minting of coinage in about the seventh to sixth century BC"

This is patently false. The history of money is not synonymous with the history of coinage. It is widely accepted that money originated as a unit of account in the public sector temples & palaces of bronze age Mesopotamia.

Sources:

• The Archaeology of Money by Michael Hudson
• The New Economic Archaeology of Debt by Michael Hudson
• Role of Accounting in Civilization's. Economic Takeoff by Michael Hudson

• Creating Economic Order: Record-Keeping, Standardization and the Development of Accounting in the Ancient Near East (ed. with Cornelia Wunsch), (CDL Press, Baltimore, 2004).
• Debt and Economic Renewal in the Ancient Near East (ed. with Marc Van De Mieroop) (CDL Press, Baltimore, 2002).
• Urbanization and Land Ownership in the Ancient Near East (ed. with Baruch Levine) (Cambridge, Mass: Peabody Museum (Harvard), 1999).
• Privatization in the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity (ed. with Baruch Levine) (Cambridge, Mass: Peabody Museum (Harvard), 1996).

Vilhelmo (talk) 04:35, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree, and the problem is not only with the first sentence. For example the commodity money section still assumes that barter preceded commodity money. Alæxis_¿question? 11:08, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. And in 2024, that mention of barter systems is still there. Tut tut. Summerdoor (talk) 11:24, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Ideological confusion

The article thoroughly mixes several definitions of money, without warning the reader that they come from very distinct and often opposite economic theories. It also gives undeserved weight to some marginal theories, like "Austrian Economics" and Graeber's theory of "Debt money". It should be reorganized and sectioned according to said schools. Jorge Stolfi (talk) 12:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I inserted such a warning as the Theories of Money section. An Austrian hijacked it, but the second paragraph is mine (except the last line, blech). In my view it is not just an economic theories problem; there are different kinds of money (not just different definitions) with their own histories and that is not understood. Fixing it is a big job and doing it to everyone's satisfaction will be tricky.

Debt money is not originally Graeber's and is not marginal, it is the money we have and have had—as Keynes said—for at least 4000 years.

See, I told you it was tricky. Wingsail (talk) 21:24, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Tally sticks

The article assumes without evidence that prehistoric tally sticks were records of debt. (That is probably taken from Graeber's "money frmo debt" theory.) But tally sticks can be used to count many, many other things. Jorge Stolfi (talk) 12:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

That's not how I read it. You could add something about calendars if you like. Wingsail (talk) 21:39, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

The shekel was not a token for barley

The article states that the shekel was "both a coin representing a specific weight of barley, and the weight of that sack of barley." But according to this article, the shekel was a unit of weight for metals, equivalent to about 11 grams -- like the modern "troy ounce". Thus a "silver shekel" was 11 grams of silver, usually in the form of a coin (a round ingot with government seal guaranteeing weight and purity); a "gold shekel" was 11 grams of gold. Neither "represented" anything; their value was the value of the metal. If there was a unit of weight of barley also called "shekel", it must have been a lot more than 11 grams... Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

It does seem absurd to claim that barley was worth its weight in silver - or even bronze, copper or iron. That paragraph ends with a citation "Kramer, History Begins at Sumer, pp. 52–55.", but that source makes no such claim. It does mention on page 260 that once, as a result of war, "prices rose so high that a shekel of silver could buy but half a sila of oil, half a sila of grain...", a sila being about half a gallon. This online calculator indicates that half a US gallon of barley would be in the region of 1.1 kg, so in a notably extreme situation, silver was worth 'only' a hundred times its weight in barley. That text was inserted in a large edit in 2017. NebY (talk) 16:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I've removed the sentence since it was not supported by any source. Alaexis_¿question? 20:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Shekel, I presume, was the name of the unit of account. Its value would originally have been set to equal a commonly used quantity of barley (also called a shekel) but it would have drifted over time. Think "pound sterling" rather than "troy ounce". In international trade a silver shekel would have had the value of its metal but in the issuer's jurisdiction it would be worth more. I don't think the author of that line @Christopher Theodore had a good understanding of unit of account. Wingsail (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

You're all overestimating the value of gold & silver in the Bronze & Iron Ages... And projecting more modern Age valuation upon these metals.

Metal to make weapons & tools was more valuable than gold & silver in those earlier Ages.

I am not in error. Christopher Theodore (talk) 02:16, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

The article cited as a criticism of my citation was written in the 1900s and is describing a skelel in a much more modern Age, not related to the time period Rome first started using 'signed bronze'.

My reference came from that Bronze Age subject matter. Christopher Theodore (talk) 02:24, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Google turned up plenty of resources for this search term:

babylonian grain and silver standards

You people failed to do your homework. Christopher Theodore (talk) 02:37, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I won't waste another moment here.

My time is better spent denouncing this garbage pile of an "encyclopedia".

Enjoy the propaganda machine while it lasts... Christopher Theodore (talk) 19:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Current Monetary Value of Gold - US Dollars

There is a lot of confusion in both the article and the talk page trying to hype up the 'market value' or 'commodity value' of gold & silver.

The current 'monetary value' of 1 Fine Troy Ounce of Gold in US Dollars is only: $42.2222

The 'commodity value' and stable fixed statutory 'monetary value' are NOT the same.

We should ONLY be looking at 'monetary values', not 'market values'.

In truth, metal coinage — in ancient historical views — are the same as paper notes.

In ancient Babylon, if there was no grain stores due to famines... a shekel wasn't worth a shekel.

The silver coin was worthless if it could not be redeemed in the grain asset backing it. Christopher Theodore (talk) 05:22, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Fractional Reserve Banking & Credit Creation

Fractional Reserve Banking only existed in the US between 1913 and 1934, when it catastrophically failed (Banker's Holiday) and was replaced by the New Deal's Credit Creation System.

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/03/kumhof.htm

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521915001477

Christopher Theodore (talk) 16:48, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Roman Section

This website and the links to its reference materials should be reviewed and guide the development of this section.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Aes%20Formatum

Specifically the creation of the Latin term 'fiat money', which is originally referring to the aes signatum. Granted, the Ham. Code is the oldest "official decree" creating money, however the word 'fiat' comes from Rome.

The corruption of this word should not be allowed to taint this article. Christopher Theodore (talk) 17:14, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

This paper examines the Roman laws ("official decrees") creating Roman fiat money.

It also supports the connection between the barter system and fiat money of Rome, which is asset backed fiat money.

Bertol, A. & K Farac. "Aes rude and aes formatum – a new typology" in VAMZ, 3. s., XLV (2012).

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/documents/BERTOL_FARAC_Aes_rude_and_aes_formatum.pdf Christopher Theodore (talk) 17:19, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Gold and Silver coin was not used by Rome until much later. Bronze was the main metal used for most of Rome's existence. Christopher Theodore (talk) 17:25, 4 August 2024 (UTC)