Human Money Tools

  In the Paleolithic days before farming, people only worried about four things: Sex, Food, Companionship and Life itself. People didn't really need to trade with each other because each of  us knew how to hunt, fish and gather. These people didn't need money so they could go to the movies. They just needed something in their belly.   

  Humans are tool users and money is a tool that allows us to specialize and practice Division of Labor. We no longer are required to be hunters, gathers and farmers, instead we can trade the goods and services we produce for money and then use the money to trade for the goods and services that others produce - including food. Money is an extremely important technology to human collaboration and it is very valuable how we setup our monetary systems.   

  Historically, paleolithic humans are believed to have bartered with each other. Soon they found that some commodities for barter were more marketable than others (marketable meaning that almost all people wanted the commodity) and could be used as an intermediate of exchange -Money is said to be a "Medium of Exchange." There are many things that made a commodity marketable:

Portable (Easy to carry)
Cannot be stolen (theft resistant)
Holds its value over time or even goes up in value(scarce)
Is not taxable 
Does not decay
Many people want the commodity (even people in far away lands)
Allows for quick transfers
Gold, Silver and Copper were all commodies that were marketable and so these commodies evolved into the first monetary systems. The metal was fashioned into coins and the weights were standardized. Banking and treasury systems arose. Laws regarding borrowing and loans. Exchange rates between gold and silver were set. But there were some problems and people wanted to figure out how to make the system better.   

  

  “Money is nothing but a medium of exchange and it completely fulfills its function when the exchange of goods and services is carried on more easily with its help that would be possible by means of barter.” Theory of Money and Credit -= Ludwig von Misses

  Money allows us to make indirect exchanges by employing a commodity that can be exchanged for most other goods and services. Indirect exchanges are much more efficient than direct exchanges (bartering).

  The money that humans like is the money that is the “most marketable.” Meaning that the most amount of people also want to use it as a intermediate exchange commodity. In order for money to be ethical, money simply need be marketable. Here are the things that make money marketable:

1.      Cannot be stolen
2.      Accepted by Everyone
3.      Beautiful
4.      Goes up in value
5.      It allows people to trade goods and services indirectly.
6.      It allow people to trade goods and services through time (e.g. credit transactions against future goods)
7.      It allows people to trade goods over long distances.
8.      It provide interactive feedback so that the task the user is working on receives higher priority
9.      It allow for multiple transactions at once
10.  It allows for quick transactions
11.  It make the economy work easier and more efficiently
12.  It support the division of labor which is more efficient
13.  It does not Be fair enough so that people will engage in indirect trade.
14.  Is not taxable
15.  Does not decay
16.  Does not lose its value over time, space or distance
17. Can not be manipulated by the government or be subject to political power.
18. Can not be manipulated by corporations, individuals or other groups.
 
  Money allows us to have division of labor without everyone getting ripped off. Any money system that allows people to get screwed out of their labor is unethical.

  Note that there needn’t be a government to have money and money existed long before governments.

 
Beginning with the view that money is a medium of exchange we would expect that when a person smartly gets an education, and works efficiently, we would expect them to have some money. Those people who decide to play video games all day and refuse to work should have no money. That is justice. People who invent something special that makes everyone’s lives easier  may be expected to have a lot of money and those who steal and cheat can be expected to not only have no money but to be punished. An unjust system would allow the cheaters to get rich while the inventors are poor. In an unjust system, the inventors stop inventing, the producers stop producing and everyone get poorer.

 The communist idea “From each according to their ability and To Each according to their need” falls flat on the justice.