Chapter 22 6. Money

In fact, people in prehistoric society lived by hunting. At that time, people generally ate the prey immediately after hunting.So at that time there was a balance between needs and material things, and people actually had no concept of property or money.When too many wild animals were hunted and they were not eaten up, and at the same time they found a way to preserve them, there was a surplus. In addition, people learned to farm and plant later, and the way of life changed.For example, if you catch 10 wild boars and can't finish them, people will domesticate the rest. Who will domesticate them?It is mainly domesticated by some women, and it is the women's credit that all wild animals are turned into domestic animals.The first surplus property was created when women raised wild boars to domestic pigs.

However, how to control these things has become a problem, so private property has emerged.Who governs it?It is impossible for everyone to distribute it equally, but if one or two people control it, the person who controls it becomes the owner, and thus private property appears.Then there was a problem of transition, that is, to transfer property from one's own hands to children, or from one's own hands to others, so the problem of property exchange appeared. As wealth increases, exchange relationships become more complex.In the beginning, there were only wheat and pigs, and those who had wheat exchanged with those who had pigs; then they raised sheep and seed corn, and those who had sheep exchanged with those who had corn, and those who had corn wanted to exchange with those who had wheat , so the exchange process becomes more and more complicated, until it becomes impossible to exchange things (barter) in the end.If there are 100 things, the combinations that are swapped with each other are difficult to calculate.When material abundance reaches a certain level, this kind of barter exchange that satisfies everyone's wishes is completely impossible to realize.At this time, someone proposed an intermediate thing, we all change this thing, and then use this thing to change everything.This makes the transaction and exchange very simple, and thus discovers the concept of a medium that serves as an intermediate exchange. This medium has had many forms in different nations and societies, including shells, gold, copper, cloth, and animals. Leather, such as cowhide and sheepskin, has been used as a medium of exchange, and finally this medium is gradually fixed as gold or silver, because gold and silver are less likely to change color, and it is not easy to corrode, and at the same time it is easy to cut into different parts. Equal parts, easily metered, make it a standardized medium of exchange.Different nations and countries have gradually given the government the power to manufacture such a standardized medium of exchange, and then this thing becomes "money".

So the sequence of money generation is very interesting. First there is private property, then there is private exchange, and then there is the generation of a medium of exchange like money, and then the government endows this money with a legal form.At first, there should be money first, followed by the government, but later it became that only the government can print money, and the money has gradually changed from gold to the current banknotes. The next evolution of banknotes is electronic currency. In the end, what everyone sees is a number. a code.But no matter what, whether it is a number or a code, money itself still has two traditional functions. One function is the means of exchange or the medium of transaction we are talking about, and the other function is a value measure, which measures the value of each item. Is it five yuan or two yuan, which is worth more than the other.

Understanding such a process is very helpful for us to understand wealth.We deal with and do business today, and the money we encounter every day essentially plays a role in promoting transactions, and is used to measure wealth during the transaction process.