Money is a Creature of Fiscal Accounting and Law
Bibliography
Raymond Aitken:
- Research into this question by anthropologists over the last 5,000 of human social development, (i.e. not by economists with vested interests or received dogmas), shows that money evolved from credit, and not from barter. And, that the unit of account function predated that of the commodified means of exchange. What this means, is that money originated as the accounting of economic rights and obligations within a community of producer-consumers (i.e. a social relationship), and that these rights were “securitised” by the social contract, in terms of the law within a given polity.
A means of exchange in terms of a commodity with intrinsic value was only used to overcome the limits of ensuring reciprocity between different monetary jurisdictions (polities) - i.e. for “international trade”, or for the payment of foreign mercenaries during campaigns to establish, maintain or extend hegemonic control over international trade (i.e. empire building).
See:
[1] David Graeber (2011): "Debt: The First 5000 Years" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years
- Anthropological research shows the historical evidence that money is a creature of fiscal accounting and law (as Aristotle and many others have asserted). See:
[2] P2P foundation (2013): Tally Money - http://p2pfoundation.net/Tally_Money
[3] Dirk J Bezemer, 2009: Banks As Social Accountants And Social Controllers: Credit and Crisis in Historical Perspective - http://www.uclm.es/actividades/2009/workshopESHET-UCLM/Bezemer_-_Banks_as_social_accountants.pdf
[4] Dirk J Bezemer, 2009: Banks As Social Accountants: Credit and Crisis Through an Accounting Lens - http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15766/
[5] Dirk J Bezemer, 2009: "No One Saw This Coming": Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models - http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15892/
[6] Stiglitz and Weiss, 1988: Banks as social accountants and screening devices for the allocation of credit - National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper #2710 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2710.pdf?new_window=1
[7] Richard A. Werner, 2014: How do banks create money, and why can other firms not do the same? An explanation for the coexistence of lending and deposit-taking - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001434