Are we to refer its commercial currency and its value in trade to the same causes conditioning those of other goods, or are they the distinct product of convention and authority? Is money an organic member in the world of commodities, or is it an economic anomaly? 2. if we are going to inquire into the different degrees of saleableness in goods so as to show its bearing upon practical life, we can only do so by consulting the greater or less facility with which they may be disposed of at prices corresponding to the general economic situation, that is, at economic prices.3 A commodity is more or less saleable according as we are able, with more or less prospect of success, to dispose of it at prices corresponding to the general economic situation, at economic prices. Unlike baseball, in cricket, the bowler (pitcher) bounces the ball off the ground. And hence there runs, from the first essays of reflective contemplation of a social phenomena down to our own times, an uninterrupted chain of disquisitions upon the nature and specific qualities of money in its relation to all that constitutes traffic. Read his stuff before you place any bets. It is a question concerning not only the origin but also the nature of money and its position in relation to all other commodities. On the other hand, however, by state recognition and state regulation, this social institution of money has been perfected and adjusted to the manifold and varying needs of an evolving commerce, just as customary rights have been perfected and adjusted by statute law. 5 The Hebrew Keseph, the Greek argurion, the Latin argentum, the French argent, etc. T h e OF THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY 51 THE WEALTH OF NATIONS R o m a n s A s , in the latter ages of the Republic, was reduced to the twentyfourth part of its original value, and, instead of weighing a p o u n d , came to weigh only half an ounce. They were all money. What therefore constitutes the peculiarity of a commodity which has become money is, that the possession of it procures for us at any time, i.e., at any moment we think fit, assured control over every commodity to be had on the market, and this usually at prices adjusted to the economic situation of the moment; the control, on the other hand, conferred by other kinds of commodities over market goods is, in respect of time, and in part of price as well, uncertain, relatively if not absolutely. It is a question concerning not only the origin but also the nature of money and its position in relation to all other commodities. right on the money. : at the selling price.2. But how much more seldom does it happen that these two bodies meet! And this difference in saleableness ceases to be altogether gradual, and must be regarded in a certain aspect as something absolute. Carl Menger has not only provided an irrefutable praxeological theory of the origin of money. This has all the greater significance for practical life, inasmuch as to overcome this difficulty does not lie unconditionally within reach of him who brings less saleable goods to market, but depends in part upon circumstances over which the individual bargainer has no control. Under such circumstances what could lie more contiguous than the notion of referring the foregoing procedure to causes lying outside the sphere of individual considerations? Money stores value so that you can keep it for a long time without it losing value. The time limits to the saleableness of commodities are mainly conditioned—. [ Slang ; 1940s] The introduction of decimal coinage to the UK was a long while coming. ‘His piece on the merger was so on the money as to be prophetic.’ ‘This week, for once, such a hopeful description of a largely moribund event could prove to be right on the money.’ ‘Munroe is right on the money, not only on grants to the arts, but also on entire grant programs.’ It must not be supposed that the form of coin, or document, employed as current-money, constitutes the enigma in this phenomenon. We may look away from these forms and go back to earlier stages of economic development, or indeed to what still obtains in countries here and there, where we find the precious metals in a uncoined state serving as the medium of exchange, and even certain other commodities, cattle, skins, cubes of tea, slabs of salt, cowrie-shells, etc. The problem, which science has here to solve, consists in giving an explanation of a general, homogeneous course of action pursued by human beings when engaged in traffic, which, taken concretely, makes unquestionably for the common interest, and yet which seems to conflict with the nearest and immediate interests of contracting individuals. OF THE ORIGIN AND USE OF MONEY 53 riginally contained in their coins. 1556332. October 9, 2018 • No Comments • What does the idiom “on the money” mean? But the transition was surprisingly smooth. p. 59, et seq. Roscher, System Der Volkswirthscaft, I sec. Commerce and speculation would be the simplest things in the world, if the theory of the “objective equivalent in goods” were correct, if it were actually true, that in a given market and at a given moment commodities could be mutually converted at will in definite quantitative relations—could, in short, at a certain price be as easily disposed of as acquired. There’s ‘ on the mark’ , ‘ on target ‘, ‘on the dot’ , and ‘ spot on ‘ to name a few. Philosophers, jurists, and historians, as well as economists, and even naturalists and mathematicians, have dealt with this notable problem, and there is no civilized people that has not furnished its quota to the abundant literature thereon. Exact, precise, as in Your estimate is right on the money. And the less saleable are the goods brought by an economic subject to market, the more unfavourably, for his own purposes, will his economic position compare with the position of those who bring money to market. A jingle publicising the new coinage in the BBC’s Decimal Five series proclaimed that ‘Decimalisation will change your lives’. The occult aspect of money would then be that it is secretly about worship of certain deitys. Upon the number and nature of the limitations imposed politically and socially upon exchange and consumption with respect to the commodity in question. Some commodities, in consequence of the development of markets and speculation, are able at any time to find a sale in practically any quantity at economic, approximately economic, prices. What do they all have in common? The cost of preserving and storing them. All these circumstances, on which depend the different degrees of, and the different local and temporal limits to, the saleableness of commodities, explain why it is that certain commodities can be disposed of with ease and certainty in definite markets, i.e., within local and temporal limits, at any time and in practically any quantities, at prices corresponding to the general economic situation, while the saleableness of other commodities is confined within narrow spatial, and again, temporal, limits: and even within these the disposal of the commodities in question is difficult, and, in so far as the demand cannot be waited for, is not to be brought about without a more or less sensible diminution in price. Men have been led, with increasing knowledge of their individual interests, each by his own economic interests, without convention, without legal compulsion, nay, even without any regard to the common interest, to exchange goods destined for exchange (their “wares”) for other goods equally destined for exchange, but more saleable. Consider how seldom it is the case, that a commodity owned by somebody is of less value in use than another commodity owned by somebody else! What is the nature of those little disks or documents, which in themselves seem to serve no useful purpose, and which nevertheless, in contradiction to the rest of experience, pass from one hand to another in exchange for the most useful commodities, nay, for which every one is so eagerly bent on surrendering his wares? Even in the relatively simple and so often recurring case, where an economic unit, A, requires a commodity possessed by B, and B requires one possessed by C, while C wants one that is owned by A—even here, under a rule of mere barter, the exchange of the goods in question would as a rule be of necessity left undone. The interval of time, moreover, within which the disposal of a commodity at the economic price may be reckoned on, is of great significance in an inquiry into its degree of saleableness. 116; my Grunsatze der Volkswirischaftslehre, 1871, p. 255, et seq. Related Articles. This term alludes to a winning bet in horse racing. The peculiar adaptability of the precious metals for purposes of currency and coining was noticed by Aristotle, Xenophon, and Pliny, and to a far greater extent by John Law, Adam Smith and his disciples, who all seek a further explanation of the choice made of them as media of exchange, in their special qualifications. The man who goes to market with his wares intends as a rule to dispose of them, by no means at any price whatever, but at such as corresponds to the general economic situation. The degree to which a commodity is found by experience to command a sale, at a given market, at any time, at prices corresponding to the economic situation (economic prices), depends upon the following circumstances. His aims are directed first and foremost, in accordance with the simplicity of all primitive culture, only at what lies first to hand. IN GOD WE TRUST was first used on paper money in 1957, when it appeared on the one-dollar silver certificate. 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