Wealth of Nation Note (Ch.4)
Barter - Metal - Coins - Money Without the power to exchange, a specialized market could never exist. Since people will not be able to exchange their surplus production into something that they need. Barter Smith started this chapter with the Barter system, where the ancient civilization used a variety of different items to exchange such as oxen in Ancient Greece. However, their system does have tons of disadvantages: People have different needs for items, because of that trade might not take place, even though they both have surplus. It is also hard to exchange the exact value as some items are not divisible and on top of that some items might be hard to carry around too. Thus for something to serve as a good exchange medium, it needs to satisfy 3 categories: Universally wanted. Divisible. Easy to carry. Metal Slowly most civilizations started using metal as the medium of exchange. Since it is “universally wanted” (because of what it represents exchange value now.) Beside...