Money and Sand in the Gears of Commerce
Money is, perhaps, the most important invention no one person invented. There are two important claims we should unpack. First, we posit that money is an incredible innovation—an innovation that is potentially the most important. It unclogs the fountains of commerce—to extend Adam Smith’s phraseology of 1776 when An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published—and it offers a way out—to use Menger’s description from his 1871 textbook Principles of Economics—of the crippling problem posed by barter. That is, by reducing the transaction costs of most of the exchanges people want to make, the things we—and other people in society—call money are so helpful because ...
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