1.1.1. The necessity and essence of money
Money is probably one of the greatest inventions of a human thought. It hasn’t any analogues in an animated nature. The whole structure of the modern economy is determined by the existence of money. The world economy has two basic theories of the money origin: rational and evolutional.
According to the rational theory money is the result of an agreement between people who invented them as a special instrument used for goods exchange.
The followers of this theory were such famous American economists as John Kenneth Galbraith, Campbell R. McConnell, Stanley L. Brue, Paul Anthony Samuelson, etc.
At present time when the modern types of money are in daily use (paper and electronic money) this theory looks quite reasonable and reliable. However it doesn’t discover any mystery in the money nature understanding. Though the rational theory followers themselves do not deny it.
The second theory was offered by Karl Marx. He affirmed that the money mystery will disappear if retrace their history «… from the simplest form of exchange to the brightest – monetary form».
Karl Marx linked the evolutional theory of money origin with the labor theory of value whereof follows that the cost of good measures by the quantity of abstract labor (i.e. labor in common, not exact) spent on its production.
Nowadays the majority of native scientists hold the evolutional theory of the money origin. There are several stages of the money evolution history:
The first stage is simple or elementary form of value.
The money origin date to 7>th-8>th millenium B.C.E. when the primitive people recognized some surpluses of the products which could be changed on the other required products, i.e. the exchange occurred at random: one product valued by another opposite. Marx wrote that this form is not so simple as could seem because it has two poles of value expression.