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The Origins of Money

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Written in the same year that he testified before the Currency Commission in Austria-Hungary, and published in English in 1892, Carl Menger explains that it is not government edicts that create money but instead the marketplace. Individuals decide what the most marketable good is for use as a medium of exchange. “Man himself is the beginning and the end of every economy,” Menger wrote, and so it is with deciding what is to be traded as money."Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution. Sanction by the authority of the state is a notion alien to it. "This is the first time this essay has been in print in more than a century!Introduction by Doug French

54 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1892

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Carl Menger

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
Profile Image for Pedro Almeida Jorge.
Author 3 books65 followers
October 9, 2018
"The theory of money necessarily presupposes a theory of the saleableness of goods. If we grasp this, we shall be able to understand how the almost unlimited saleableness of money is only a special case, - presenting only a difference of degree - of a generic phenomenon of economic life - namely, the difference in the saleableness of commodities in general" (p. 21)

"If we but try to dispose of an article of clothing, a book, or a work of art, which we have just purchased, in the same market, even though it be all once, before the same juncture of conditions has altered, we shall easily convince ourselves of the fallaciousness of such an assumption. The price at which any one can at pleasure buy a commodity at a given market and a given point of time, and the price at which he can dispose of the same at pleasure, are two essentially different magnitudes." (p. 24)

"Putting aside assumptions which are historically unsound, we can only come fully to understand the origin of money by learning to view the establishment of the social procedure, with which we are dealing, as the spontaneous outcome, the unpremeditated resultant, of particular, individual efforts of the members of a society, who have little by little worked their way to a discrimination of the different degrees of saleableness in commodities." (p. 38)

This gentle monograph is the result of a testomony delivered in 1892 and, with due formatting, could probably fit into 25 regular pages. However, it happens to represent three major steps towards a more complete and authentic grasp of the real nature of money:

1 - Money is best described as an adjective, not a noun - just as blogger JP Koning is very keen on observing. Every good has its own saleability which is discovered on the market (first quotation);

2 - Those varying degrees of saleability are visible in the bid-ask spread, which we can attest by trying to sell back the goods we have just bought (second quotation);

3 - The emergence of a single commodity to be used as the general means of exchange, hoarding and accounting is the result not of a legal decree or premeditated convention, but of a spontaneous social development, brought about by the individual actions of the most diverse economic agents, each one guided by their own interests (third quotation).

The originality/lenght ratio 0n this one is just too high not to 5 star it.

EDIT: bonus quote:

"Goods which had thus become generally acceptable media of exchange were called by the Germans Geld, from gelten, i.e., to pay, to perform, while other nations derived their designation for money mainly from the substance used*, the shape of the coin**, or even from certain kinds of coin.

* - The Hebrew Keseph, the Greek argurion, the Latin argentum, the French argent, etc.
** - The English money, the Spanish moneda, the Portuguese moeda, the French monnaie, the Hebrew maoth, the Arabic fulus, the Greek nomisma, etc.


Even though this is a subject I wish to further explore, my take on this is that Germans seem to be in a more advantaged position to understand the nature of money than any other European speakers. They are the only ones who seem to define money, etymologically, as that which fulfills one's promise, that which releases one from debt, rather than giving attention to the physical properties of the substance used.

Thus, in Portugal, we have "moeda", which also means "coin", from the latin "moneta", and also "dinheiro", which I would translate as "currency" - something that circulates, which reminds us of the ability to clear a set of various interrelated transactions; but we seem to lack a definitive name for the ultimate settlement - "Geld", to pay, to perform, as Menger explained.

The danger of this subtle handicap is present in the modern confusion between money and credit. Credit may (and should) be used as currency, but only "Geld" may extinguish and settle any clearing surplus/deficit. True money, "Geld", is the only financial asset that is not anyone's liability - as Professor Antal Fekete (Menger's follower) has been explaining for the last 20 years. Thus, the claim that banks create money is just a fallacy of those who have been misled by this conceptual (and etymological) confusion.

But I digress. It was just my humble opinion.
Profile Image for Jason Keisling.
63 reviews8 followers
February 9, 2016
This was a very good read on the origins of money. I recommend reading it along with Rothbard's "What Has Government Done with our Money?"

It's shorter than Rothbard's book on money, but it's also a bit more difficult to follow. It goes into more detail on the origins, whereas Rothbard's book covers more detail on weights, sizes, etc., as well as direct and indirect exchange. Both are short and very informative.
Profile Image for José Oroño.
56 reviews24 followers
July 10, 2017
Contrary to what one might expect after reading the title, this is not a historical inquiry (although he does make use of etymology in a few occasions), but a theoretical one, into the origins of money, which Menger defines as a medium of exchange made useful by its unlimited “saleableness” (a concept highly akin to that of ‘liquidity’ in modern economic theory) within a particular market.

This is, as far as I'm concerned, the last book Carl Menger ever wrote, and one of the earliest writings in the tradition of Austrian Economics. It's biggest virtue is that, unlike much of what passes for Austrian "economic theory" these days, its political undertones aren't quite as explicit.

Menger's analysis is much more subtle than the ones you can find at, let’s say, the FEE or Hazlitt’s “Economics in one lesson”, and doesn't enter into normative territory until the very last chapter, which is, perhaps incidentally, the shortest of them all, and includes descriptive statements aplenty.

His prose is dense enough for him to squeeze intricate arguments into 4-page-long, standalone chapters without sacrificing any depth or academic rigor. The fifth chapter is, for instance, extremely enlightening and a prime example of what textbooks should be written like.
Profile Image for GDM.
97 reviews5 followers
August 19, 2024
Obra que todo aquel que se precie de tener un conocimiento sobre la ciencia económica, debe haber leído por lo menos una vez.
Además, ya desde aquí, tendrá una base sólida por la cual fundamentar los postulados de la Escuela Austríaca de Economía. Estoy ansioso por seguir consumiendo más de sus escritos.

Aprovecho para preservar en forma de cita, el cierre del libro:
"Sólo se puede entender verdaderamente el origen del dinero si aprendemos a considerarlo como una institución social, como el resultado
espontáneo, el producto no planificado de los esfuerzos específicamente
individuales de los miembros de la sociedad.".

Abrazo.
147 reviews78 followers
April 17, 2021
Menger presupposes a lot about less advanced peoples but cites few sources. He does not ground his arguments in a psychological foundation or use economic history or anthropology to discover how such people actually behave, he projects the modern tendency to exchange, absent even in the more primitive peoples existing today, onto people where it was absent and builds his hypotheses on that. Pure psychoanalysis.
Profile Image for Artur.
244 reviews
August 4, 2021
A short but wholesome essay on the presumed
model of origins of money from a century ago. Even though it’s main premiss isn’t really supported by any historical data in the book, the model of money coming together as the best mean of exchange naturally as a winner commodity that is saleable and highly convertible and stems from earlier use of noble metals in the same purpose later adapted by the rulers and turned into currency with the same basic materials is quite enticing and feels intuitive. Even though the language of the book is a bit dated and verbose for the modern reader, it is quite clear when read carefully and covers a lot of hidden complexity which helps to drive the point.
4 reviews4 followers
January 9, 2016
Find herein a history of Money as a spontaneous construct, and, maybe more interestingly, as a platonic ideal. The text at stake is uneconomical twofold, inasmuch as it is, once, much more expansive than one would expect from the page count, and twice, much less empirically grounded than Austrian economists would like it to be. A captivating read anyway, which could provide a good companion to undergraduates first learning about Walrasian models and finding little to relate to in the infamous welfare theorems. Recommended.
Profile Image for Cristhian.
Author 1 book54 followers
June 8, 2015
Menger comparte ideas sobre la teorización del dinero más que un bien estatal como un interés social.
Es increíble que después de 123 años de su publicación, muchas ideas y conceptos -como el de que la liquidez afecta el hecho de donde sale el dinero- y uso de metales y otros bienes para crear ese concepto ficticio, del papel moneda.

Ensayo corto e interesante, les guste o no el capitalismo.
Profile Image for عدنان العبار.
509 reviews128 followers
April 19, 2020
Excellent book on the theory of money, its history, and how to handle it; (or rather, who—between the market or the state—, should handle it). I loved it. Short, a bit tough to process, but very insightful and a lovely and historically important read.
22 reviews
September 22, 2021
Menger, tal y como el título del libro adelanta, nos expresa de forma concisa y sencilla como la sociedad comenzó a usar el dinero tal y como lo conocemos hoy en día.

El dinero surge de la necesidad de intercambiar bienes. El problema viene, tal y como explica Menger, de la liquidez misma del producto a intercambiar, es decir, la demanda del mismo. Es muy sencillo para un esquilador colocar la lana en el mercado, pero no tanto para un médico colocar sus utensilios específicos. Ante esta dificultad el médico tendería a reducir el precio del bien, obteniendo así una cantidad de dinero inferior a la establecida por la situación económica.
Esta situación dio lugar a que la población comenzara ha utilizar dichos productos "líquidos" como intermediarios a la hora de colocar los productos difíciles de intercambiar en el mercado. El médico intercambiaba sus productos específicos por lana, la cual a su vez la utilizaba como medio de pago "dinero" para comprar su bien final deseado.
De esta manera acabaron convirtiéndose los bienes líquidos en lo que hoy conocemos como dinero. Destacando tal y como lo hace el autor de forma impecable, el origen social del dinero, no tal y como lo conocemos en la actualidad. Una herramienta estatal la cual se ha apropiado no solo de su origen sino de su utilidad y valor.
Profile Image for André.
286 reviews81 followers
November 26, 2023
"The Origins of Money" is a seminal work by Austrian economist Carl Menger, published in 1892. In this groundbreaking book, Menger explores the evolutionary development of money, seeking to uncover the spontaneous and organic emergence of this crucial economic institution.

Menger begins by challenging prevailing theories of his time, particularly the classical and metallist views that posited a top-down approach to the origin of money. Instead, he introduces a bottom-up perspective, arguing that money does not arise from state decree or collective agreement but evolves naturally from individuals' choices based on their subjective valuations of goods.

The author identifies the fundamental qualities that make certain commodities more suitable for use as money, emphasizing their marketability and divisibility. According to Menger, goods such as gold and silver became money not because of government fiat but because individuals recognized their inherent utility, leading to widespread acceptance in economic transactions.

Menger also delves into the historical development of money, examining how various societies transitioned from barter systems to monetary economies. He contends that money emerges as a solution to the challenges posed by the double coincidence of wants inherent in barter, facilitating more efficient exchanges.

One of Menger's key insights is the concept of the regression theorem, which explains how the value of money can be traced back through a historical process of individual valuations. This theory challenges the notion that money's value is solely derived from its current purchasing power.

"The Origins of Money" is a foundational work that laid the groundwork for the modern Austrian School of Economics. Menger's emphasis on individual choices and spontaneous order has influenced subsequent economic thought, and his analysis of the origins of money continues to be relevant in understanding the complex evolution of economic institutions.
Profile Image for DrBabić.
24 reviews
August 24, 2024
My interpretation. Money as in Commodity Money and Money as in Unit of Account. Today, we refer to the Money as Unit of Account as Currency. And Money as in Commodity Money perhaps Gold or Bitcoin. But Money as in Commodity Money must have the following attributes: its Purchase price and Disposition Price must not contain a gap (spread) at any time (temporal), in any quantities (liquidity) and, anywhere (spatial). It must be valued (market price) at its economical price (intrinsic value). We refer to this metric as its saleability or markeatability. There are more criteria like durability, portability, etc. But how do we reconcile Fiat with Money. Well, Fiat is not Money as in Commodity Money since it does not have an economic price (intrisic value), since it is based on trust. Fiat is Currency aka at best Money as in Unit of Account. Then, the question is why can't we have Money that is both Commodity Money and Unit of Account? I believe it was the case in the past where Gold was both. But today everything is priced in USD at best. Is there a new form of Money that will fit this definition that Menger talks about in the near future?
Profile Image for Jairo Fraga.
345 reviews28 followers
August 17, 2018
O pai da Escola Austríaca em um breve livro que não envolve uma investigação mais histórica, como pensei que fosse ser, mas sim a subjetividade do valor dos bens, e negação do surgimento da moeda mediante decreto/lei.

Menger mostra o quão furada é a teoria que diz que um item X tem um valor definido objetivamente, fruto de uma simples observação, compre um quadro em uma feira e tente vendê-lo naquele mesmo momento.

O valor de compra e venda é subjetivo, dependente de muitas condições,exemplificando através da liquidez e spread.

Rapidamente se comenta sobre a predominância das commodities metálicas como bens mais vendáveis e de características físicas mais convenientes para se tornar dinheiro.

No último capítulo transparece a visão mais antiga de que o governo, embora não devesse interferir na moeda, fez boas coisas fixando proporções e emitindo certificações, pesos e medidas, para garantir a confiabilidade da moeda.
Profile Image for Thijs Janssen.
15 reviews2 followers
May 18, 2019
Money, in its origin, is a social and not a state institution.

"In other words, they (precious metals) hereby function as commodities for which every one seeks to exchange his market-goods, not, as a rule, in order to consumption but entirely because of their special saleableness, in the intention of exchanging them subsequently for other goods directly profitable to him. No accident, nor the consequence of state compulsion, nor voluntary convention of traders effected this. It was the just apprehending of their individual self-interest which brought it
to pass, that all the more economically advanced nations accepted the precious metals as money
as soon as a sufficient supply of them had been collected and introduced into commerce."

Profile Image for Sijing.
18 reviews6 followers
February 24, 2017
It is a brief account of the origins of money, which lie in the free market rather than the political institute, the state. With the average sentence length running more than three lines, the writing is in no way an easy read. An equally informative and easier to read account on the same topic can be found in the first chapter of Murray Rothbard's book, The Mystery of Banking.
And if you don't know this already, most, if not all, of the books by the Austrian school economists are freely available on the Mises Institute website.
Profile Image for Kevin Carson.
Author 31 books338 followers
March 30, 2025
This is basically just a restatement, at greater length, of Adam Smith's hypothesis that specie-money arose as a "universal commodity" in response to the problem of dual coincidence of wants under barter. About the only aspect that's even semi-original is Menger's concept of "salability." And of course, not only is the historical and archaeological evidence of money having arisen in this way completely nonexistent, but what we do know of archaeology and anthropology -- summarized by Hudson, Wray, Graeber, &c -- directly contradicts it.
Profile Image for Troy.
171 reviews12 followers
Read
December 25, 2019
"The public’s understanding of what money is and its origins has devolved to the point where the government monetary authorities can now inflate with impunity, with the ulti-mate result to be the destruction of the division of labor undoing all of mankind’s progress to date." from the forward, by Douglas e. French

The Origins of Money offers an explanation for what defines sound money and why precious metals are a reasonable commodity for use as money.
Profile Image for João Vaz.
254 reviews27 followers
August 4, 2024
An essay explaining how money emerged as the unintended side effect of the barter, or market, economy. A lot of the argument rests on the superior marketability of precious metals, as opposed to other goods that were originally used for indirect exchange (e.g., cattle). The language might be a bit difficult to follow for those not well-versed in economics. But a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the dynamics of early market economies.
10 reviews
September 7, 2020
Apesar de seu título falar sobre a origem do dinheiro não é um livro com bases históricos, mas sim um livro bastante de economia.
Livro com uma linguagem bem técnica que pode prejudicar no entendimento para quem não estar acostumado com o autor. Porém por ser um livro pequeno ajuda a facilitar no entendimento.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Ben.
7 reviews8 followers
August 22, 2021
"Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution."

A brief foundational view of the initiation of money. The generalized argument is any commodity, if its "saleableness" is great/strong enough, can be naturally instituted in society as a common medium of exchange.
54 reviews1 follower
December 5, 2017
Un libro interesante, muy bueno para introducirse en política monetaria (en esta obra es casi donde nace la Escuela Austriaca de Economía).

Eso sí, denso, aburrido y con un estilo bastante decimonónico. Para expertos y gente que quiera saber más. Para profanos... algo denso.
Profile Image for Ramon de la Cruz.
225 reviews
May 19, 2024
Corta pero profunda reflexión del origen del dinero y sus implicaciones sociales en el individuo. Entender este concepto nos ayudará a poder ser actores principales en el sistema socioeconómico que vivimos.
Profile Image for Roberto.
91 reviews1 follower
April 15, 2025
I do not find this particularly insightful, to be honest. I think money is a spontaneous creation, not a state one, but I did not find here a convincing explanation of why it appears in the first place, only of why it takes some form or the other
Profile Image for Hongliang.
24 reviews
December 9, 2017
a bit hard to digest, partly due to language translation.

very precise talks.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
25 reviews2 followers
November 29, 2019
Bom, porém não entra em detalhes, não cita datas ou coisa do tipo, é mais sobre a teoria e não uma história em si.
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