Money - it's one of the greatest inventions of the human mind. In wildlife analogies to be found.

Even the most primitive civilization in the most remote corners of the world have created their own forms of money. The role of money, the standard of all communications that always falls to the goods, which was the highest demand, or which was the most suitable for this purpose.

For your information. For centuries, many people played the role of money cattle. In Russia, for example, the treasury was called cowgirl, and the Minister of Finance (Treasurer) - cattleman.

Historians have found evidence that the peoples of the world the role of money played a variety of products: salt, cotton cloth, copper bracelets, gold dust, horses, shells and even dried fish.

For example, in XV. Iceland tender served as dried fish, and that then reference price (price list) were as follows:

for horseshoe - 1 big fish;

a pair of shoes for women - three fishes;

per barrel of wine - 100 fishes;

per barrel of butter - 120 fishes.

About how money played a big role in the lives of people since ancient times, clearly demonstrates a curious fact. In the Ötztal Alps glacier archaeologists found a well-preserved human remains have lain there 5,000 years. Hand died in a blizzard resident Bronze Age tightly clutched a copper plate - the most precious thing he had with him. These are the copper plates at the time played the role of money.

Mankind has long sought a universal one cash commodity that will be of interest to all market participants and will conduct any transactions. For centuries, the most convenient money commodity seemed precious metals - gold and silver, which had a number of advantages:

1) uniformity;

2) high value of even a small amount;

3) resistance to environmental influences;

4) easy divisibility by arbitrary-sized parts;

5) Reasonable limitations;

6) the relative stability of supply.

That is why gold and silver in the form of bars and coins for a long time became the basis of the monetary systems of many countries of the world and for centuries the word "gold", "silver" and "money" were synonymous.

Only relatively recently in the world of money has been a revolution - there were paper money. They were first put into circulation in ancient China in the IX. However, in other countries it is widely used substitutes for "real money", that is, coins made of precious metals. Face value of such marks payment made sure the seal or signature of the monarch and the personal seal of the merchant or banker.

For example, in Russia for the use of pieces of leather stamping, and in China in the XIII. Emperor Kublai Khan ordered "coin" money from the bark of the mulberry tree, assuring them of his imperial seal.

In the countries of Western civilization pioneer in the extensive issue of paper money became the North American states (the forerunner of today's United States of America) - in 1690 these banknotes was printed Massachusetts. In Europe, first decided to adopt the American experience of France in the years 1716-1720. famous economist and banker John Law started printing banknotes Royal Bank.

Initially, the most widely used private (ie non-state) money in the form of banknotes, which means "bank notes". Such a bank card to write out a banker. It was his obligation to pay at any ticket vendor mentioned in this document sum of money. The richer the bank was, the higher was his reputation, the more confidence caused his bank notes and the wider they were used in the calculations of merchants and citizens, replacing gold and silver.

It must be said that the introduction of banknotes as a new kind of money does not cause much excitement.

For your information. Back in 1725 the celebrated British philosopher, historian and economist David Hume offered as much as simply destroy the paper money of 12 million pounds, which was 40% of the mass of money circulating in England at the moment! In his view, such a "penalty" paper ("bad") of money would be a sure way to cause the flow to the kingdom of precious metals ("good money").

Criticism of paper money has not gone unnoticed. In the future, when many countries began to create central banks, it is the latter was given the exclusive right to issue banknotes - but on behalf of the state. The reason was simple: it was believed that this will ensure the highest reliability and eliminates the issue of banknotes currency not backed by real values ​​(originally reliability notes guaranteed their free exchange of gold).

The issue of money - issuance of an additional quantity of money.

From the time of the First World War, most of the world banknotes central banks have become the primary means of cash payments, ie, the main form of cash. Their complements a bargaining chip, which minted special public organization - the mints.

Along with the cash people have long started to use non-cash (non-cash money in circulation). They represent the sum of:

1) expressed in the same monetary units as cash;

2) stored in special commercial institutions - banks;

3) used for the calculations by changing the entries in the special books or on magnetic media for computers.

Non-cash assets - amounts held in the accounts of citizens, companies and organizations in banks and used for the calculations by changing the entries in the banks to whom what sum of money belongs.

Money was created primarily to facilitate the exchange. And since the exchange - one of the oldest classes of mankind, in the same hoary antiquity goes back and monetary system.

Figuratively said the birth of money outstanding historian Fernand Braudel: "As soon as the exchange of goods, forthwith hear and babble of money."

Although humanity has come up with the money initially only to facilitate and accelerate the exchange, over time, the money began to perform other functions.

There are two approaches to the study of the origin of money - subjective and objective.

For subjective approach is that the money resulted from an agreement on this among the people.

An objective approach is proved that the money - the result of a long development of commodity-money relations, in which the weight of the goods stood alone, which was fixed for the universal equivalent.

According to this theory, the emergence of money associated with the development of trade. At an early stage of the condition of society exchange wore random, when one product is directly exchanged for another. In exchange, the cost of one of the two products was equal to the value of another. With the development of production and the social division of labor market has become filled with a variety of goods. Therefore, the opportunity to compare the cost of goods is not a single, happened to be someone superfluous goods, and many others.

In the future, from a variety of goods stood alone, such as cattle, which shared the rest. In this single product has expressed the value of all goods. Thus, as a result of a long historical development of exchange arose specific commodity: money commodity. In view of the above, you can define money as follows:

Money - it's a special kind of product that serves as a universal