hello everybody my name is professor barth history professor at arizona state university welcome to the history of money uh this is one of my favorite courses to teach maybe my favorite course although i have a few others i really enjoy teaching and as the title describes this is a a a survey an analysis of the history of money big topic but you know we do it we uh we will survey as best as we can and uh i think you're really going to like this this class we begin with the ancient world we proceed through late antiquity into the medieval period pretty quickly then we then we make our way into the renaissance early modern period this whole time we study worldwide into the 19th century and then in the second half of the course we will laser in on on the united states in the history of the us dollar we will study and analyze the most significant transition points in the history of money and we'll find in this course that money is one of the most controversial subjects in civil society and has been for a long long time by the end of this course you will have a a strong understanding of this history and and you will uh by consequence have a greater understanding of the currency issues at stake in our modern world we begin with the ancients ancient babylon we end with bitcoin right from babylon to bitcoin this is the history of money well what better way to begin the course than to ask the question what is money this is obviously a foundational question for a course like this one it's funny because given just how ubiquitous money is in all of our lives you would think that we would all have a ready answer for this question of what is money and yet the precise definition of money so oftentimes is is uh quite elusive we you know think about money all the time it's a constant preoccupation in in all of our lives but very few of us ever stop to consider the larger question of what money is precisely we take money for granted and when i say we take money for granted i don't necessarily mean the amount of money in our wallets of course but what we take for granted so oftentimes is the more abstract existence of money we we assume a basic reliability in money we assume a basic functionality in our money we take it on faith that we could later use money to buy things or that money can generally be had for those who work hard for it i will argue in this class i i think it will i think it will be quite evident that money is the most important well money with its chief corollary the price system so you have money and then you have prices money with its chief corollary the price system is the most important piece of economic technology ever developed bar none in my opinion that's inarguable so what is money let's take a look at first some more narrower economic definitions of money is a commonly accepted medium of exchange next lecture we'll look at what it means to be a medium of exchange but um in short an instrument of trade to acquire things of want or of need money is a universal universal measure of value goods services labor are valued in terms of money they have a money price and money is is that universal measure money is a store of value it's a way of satisfying future needs in deferring pleasure it's the link between present potential and future actualization right so you don't need to just immediately use your things of value to to to trade or to barter you can money acts as a store of value to to acquire things later so these are the narrower definitions i think it goes a lot it's a lot broader than that one famous metaphor that other thinkers have used if the market is the engine if the market is the engine and money is the oil that lubricates the engine gotta have markets markets are absolutely essential to have any sort of economy prosperous economy well you got to have money got to have that oil got to have that lubricant but more than that money is power power over goods and services those with lots of money generally have greater power than those who have less money marx called money the god of commodities i think what you will of marx he wasn't as far as an economist goes he wasn't a particularly good economist but i have to say that's quite an astute observation money the god of commodities max weber the famous sociologist called money the father of private property the bible calls money a root of all evil this is a an item a thing that has a certain preeminence about it a special importance money is practically irresistible it creates relationships as much as it destroys them money makes the world go round and even time is said to be money sometimes you may hear today that data is money money on the one hand is very ancient we'll see that money is very very ancient goes back thousands of years and yet on the other hand money is distinctively modern it's very modern the modern world is inconceivable without money money is uh is practically inseparable from uh modernity why is this well so much of our modern life has been monetized the monetization of modern life the penetration of money into nearly all spheres of exchange for better or for worse and i think there's examples of of both there money is responsible for so many of the material benefits of civilization just there's no question about that it just is and yet there's also no question that money has been responsible for much corruption and much evil historically money has fallen under the jurisdiction of of economics and by consequence uh discussions of money are often couched in jargon money and finance in general has uh is is oftentimes mystified with specialized languages language and and advanced mathematics and there's nothing wrong necessarily with that but in this course we're going to avoid that and because i believe that money can be understood uh on a broader level and and that's what we will do in this class in this course we will see that the state of a particular monetary system reflects many of the most important elements of society and politics a few examples the state of a particular monetary system reflects the strength and weakness of a state victory in defeat and war revolutions class structure even the nation's cultural life and moral system we can we can decipher things about all those phenomena by looking at in part and other things too but money plays a uh assumes a very prominent role in all of those things very few things tell us more about a society economy in its government than money i'm looking forward to this semester and uh and looking forward uh to to teaching you uh this history uh until next time so long bye