The Monetary System

CHAPTER 1 From Antiquity to Modern Times; Monetary Development Over 5000 Years. What History Explains and Comparison within New Contexts

“We are used to setting a company either for our entire assets or for a specified business purpose: such as the buying and selling of slaves. There was a dispute over whether a company could be set in order to have one of the participants granted a bigger part of the profit and less of the losses; Quintus Mucius considered this to be against the mere nature of a partnership while Servius Sulpicius, whose decision prevailed, considered that a partnership could be set in order to have one of the partners not participate in the losses while sharing in the profits subject to the fact that his personal contribution was precious enough to make such provision equitable”¹

— Gaïus, Institutes, III, pp. 148–154

THE ORIGIN OF MONEY; FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERN TIMES

Money is a central component of civilization’s evolution from subsistence and barter economies into finance and trade societies. The initial step in economic development usually involves the bartered exchange of goods and then physical-value equivalents, in a manner that validates simultaneous transactions between two or more parties. Heralding further transition into a financial economy, the potential issuance of currency-based tender subsequently enables legal contractual consideration and a range of transactions via a monetary standard that favourably supports economic development and ...