Nature, Functions, and the Development of Money

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D.

Prior to the appearance of money, values and commodities have been the medium of exchange. Many observers believe that these pre-monetary systems reflect the political, economic, social, and cultural lives of the people then. With the introduction of "paper" money, exchange and relationships among the people drastically shifted from what has been observed to be informal, personalistic, familial, communitarian, self-sufficient, as well as ritualistic, ceremonial, and religious to something formal, impersonal, individualistic, dependent, exploitative as well as secular and almost atheistic. Today, this shift can be observed in the meeting of two different and opposing worlds, namely, the ancient and the modern. [Read more] ...