Paper money is the most important discovery of mankind. Of course, we owe this discovery to the Chinese. As you know, the Chinese created paper, and later printing. The method of producing paper money combined both of these discoveries.
The first paper money appeared in China as early as the 800s of our era. It was very difficult to transport metal coins over long distances, so the government thought about creating paper money. It began to pay merchants not with coins, but with special certificates, which were easily exchanged for “hard” money. These certificates depicted people, trees, officials put their signatures and seals. Paper money was most likely brought to the west by travelers returning from China. They appeared in Russia in 1769.
Paper money is very easy to handle. Compared to coins, they are easier to store and convenient for payments. This money is issued by the state. Paper money is protected by special signs such as watermarks, various color schemes, etc. This is done to protect public money. It is very difficult to counterfeit such money.
Paper money has two functions: a medium of exchange and a means of payment. They cannot be exchanged for gold, so they do not go out of circulation. Sometimes, the state, lacking Money, issuing more and more paper money. But this can be dangerous if you do not take into account the commodity turnover in the country. As a result of this, paper money "gets stuck" in circulation, and their depreciation occurs. Let's give clear reasons for this depreciation: the government issued an excess amount of paper money; the wrong ratio of exports and imports of the country.
So, the essence of paper money lies in the fact that they are issued by the state, are not exchanged for gold, and are endowed with a certain course.
Before the emergence of money, there were commodity relations between buyers and sellers based on the exchange of goods. But many participants in trade transactions did not like such an exchange, because there was no exchange element in the relationship that would become a measure of the value of goods. In the end, this standard has become familiar to us money. The history of the emergence of money began from ancient times, and modern people that money would seem rather unusual.
Than only in the old days people did not try to replace money during trade transactions. The means of exchange for goods were: precious stones, copper rods, and even large and small livestock. In China, for example, shells of cowrie mollusks, strung on a string of 5–10 pieces, served as money. In the crypt of a Chinese queen, archaeologists discovered about 7,000 pieces of such shells, which were considered great wealth in ancient times.
"Shell money" was widely distributed around the world. They were also in use in Russia, where until the Mongol period stone spinning money made of pink slate served as an additional coin.
In Western Turkey, peas made of electron (an alloy of gold and silver) served as money, while in China and India they were made from silver strips, cut into squares. Then gold, which was valued in many countries, became the equivalent of money.
The main reasons for this were:
In Egypt and Babylon, gold and silver played the role of a common equivalent of value. They were in the form of thin plates, from which small pieces were sawn off. Egyptians in the 12th century BC e. used gold rings for trade. These rings were different cost, and the weight of the product was stamped on the surface.
In general, gold played the role of money until almost the twentieth century, and the reason for this is that it is not afraid of inflation, and it is convenient to store capital in it. After all, the value of such a coin at face value is the same as that of the precious metal itself, moreover, gold in itself is a recognized value that is willingly exchanged in any country.
The common term "coin" first appeared in Rome, where gold adorned the arms, legs and necks of noble matrons. And later the Romans began to use gold as a means of payment. The place for minting money then was the Roman sanctuary of Juno Moneta, so later "mints" began to be called "coins". The coin in English sounds like “coin”, but in French it is pronounced like “monet”.
Well, the fact that the well-known word "mani" means "money" is now known even to children. The first round-shaped coins began to be minted in Lydia and Greece (approximately in the 8th century BC). Both states were considered at that time the most civilized, and from them coins gradually spread to other, less developed states.
There were a lot of varieties of ancient Greek money, but we will list only the main types:
In addition, copper coins were widespread - khalk and lepta.
During the development of Rome, the Hellenic state lost its former significance. In trade, Greek coins faded into the background, and Roman money took a leading position. The Romans began to cast their money in the form of circles of bronze and copper around 339 BC. e.
The first paper money was made in China around the 8th century AD. Marco Polo, who visited the Chinese capital in 1286, saw strange paper money and wrote about this phenomenon in his travel notes. Thus, they learned about it in Europe. Strictly speaking, this "money" was not money in the full sense of the word. These were receipts that were drawn up in special trading shops, or documents on the payment of taxes, information about which was stored in administrative offices. public centers. This type of calculation then seemed surprising to foreigners visiting China, and Marco Polo himself noticed that alchemists had long dreamed of this method.
In Europe, the production of paper money is associated with Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor printing press. This method began to be used in the 15th century, and it seemed more convenient and cheaper than casting and minting precious metals.
But gold money did not soon sink into oblivion, they were used until the 17th-19th centuries, and they came in handy when large European states and the United States were forced to resort to issuing their depreciating banknotes.
It should be added that paper banknotes have a number of advantages over metal coins:
But paper money also has disadvantages:
In view of the shortcomings described above, paper money producers are always busy with one problem: how to protect banknotes from counterfeiting and provide them with special protection to determine the authenticity of a bill. Everyone who was interested in the protection of foreign and national currencies probably noticed that genuine banknotes are protected by watermarks, bulges, a certain roughness of the paper and security strips built into the banknote. Most often, for counterfeit money, it is the paper on which the banknote is printed that is suspicious. As a rule, fakes are printed on ordinary smooth paper, and a real bill can be recognized by paper even at night.
In many states, banknotes are protected by watermarks, which are quite difficult to fake without "branded paper". In factory production, special inks are also used that change color when the banknote is tilted at different angles.
The appearance of paper banknotes was a transition to the beginning of demonetization. All money can be conditionally divided into two groups. One includes metallic money issued by the state treasury. To the other - banknotes or credit notes that are issued by the main or National Bank states. Such money is backed by bank assets: gold, securities, and they replace "real money" - bars and coins.
Paper banknotes became vital to developing credit relationships. Moreover, such banknotes were backed by the gold reserves of the state and replaced precious metals, and gold was the equivalent of the cost of goods. And it was also important for business representatives that the paper currency was quoted on the stock exchanges and was not just a piece of paper unbacked by gold.
Another reason for switching to paper banknotes was their convenience in everyday life. Large amounts of paper money were more comfortable to transport than heavy and shapeless metal. Imagine how difficult it was once to transport a large amount in a postal stagecoach! It would probably be more than a dozen bulky and heavy bags stuffed with metal.
Like the whole world, Russia needed trade relations, which were supported by money or anything that could replace them. These processes began during feudal relations, when valuable furs served as the equivalent of money. Over time, their importance faded into the background, and kuna and hryvnia began to be used in trade. Actually, the hryvnia at first was a neck decoration and part-time unit of weight, which was used to measure precious metals.
Kuna and hryvnia were money in the form of silver bars of various shapes and weights. There were several types of such money: Novgorod, Chernihiv, Kyiv, coin and Tatar hryvnia. The first to appear in Russia was a piece of silver, which was minted from silver. For its manufacture, silver smelted from Arab coins was used, and the process itself took place in Kyiv in the presence of Prince Vladimir himself.
Another important coin in that time period was the zlatnik, made from pure gold. Its weight was about 4 grams, and in value it was equal to the Byzantine solidus.
The coat of arms of the Rurik family and Vladimir Svyatoslavovich himself flaunted on the zlatnik, and there were also inscriptions in Old Slavonic. But in merchant relations, the zlatnik was practically not used, most likely, this coin served only to prove the power of Russia.
The weight of the hryvnia is associated with its origin. The hryvnia goes back to the pound adopted by Russia from the Eurasian civilization. The first hexagonal hryvnia, which weighed approximately 145–165 grams, or 3–39 gold coins, appeared in Kyiv. Then two varieties of it appeared: hryvnias of silver and hryvnias of kuna.
In Russia, coins appeared earlier than in many European countries. Rusichi could boast of their own money even under Vladimir Monomakh, - it was then that the first chased silver pieces appeared. These coins were larger than Western ones, and their weight reached three grams. But the most interesting thing was that they were issued before the appearance of the first European coins - a couple of hundred years. Such was the history of the emergence of money in Russia.
In addition, the coins of Kievan Rus were made much better than European ones, and earlier than in France. However, at that time there were very few of them in circulation. In the mass use of the Russians, their own money appeared a little later. Then in Russia it was possible to meet any foreign money, and they were also called differently:
Elena Glinskaya, who was then regent (temporary ruler) instead of the minor son of Ivan IV (the Terrible), brought Russian coins to one sample. The reason for her monetary reform in 1535 was the cutting off silver from money by malefactors and reducing their weight by almost half. After the ban by E. Glinskaya, the Russian state banned the circulation of old coins and began to issue a single silver coin, which weighed more than the Novgorod money.
Because of the rider with a spear engraved on the coins, this money began to be called kopecks, and after the annexation of Novgorod, a single monetary system. In 1620, the ruble began to circulate, which was equal to 10 English shillings.
The Moscow state did not have its own silver and gold mines, and in the 17th century precious metals were brought from other states. at the Money Yard, Russian craftsmen minted their own half-money, money and kopecks from foreign coins.
The war with the Commonwealth, which was then waged by Russia, required huge expenses, and in order to raise money for the continuation of the war, the head of the Ambassadorial Order, the boyar A. L. Ordin-Nashchokin, suggested minting copper money that would replace expensive silver coins.
The idea was to collect taxes in high-grade silver, and distribute salaries in cheap copper. At first, small copper coins really went on a par with silver ones, but soon a huge amount of unsecured copper money appeared on the market. Goods and products have risen sharply in price, and what is now called inflation began. In the end, 170 copper rubles began to be given for 6 silver rubles, and a popular uprising took place, called the Copper Riot. As a result, thousands of rebels were executed, but copper coins were still canceled.
In the 18th century, the Russian Empire often fought with its neighbors, and wars required silver, which was constantly lacking in the treasury. In an attempt to make up for the eternal lack of this metal, Empress Elizabeth wanted to add copper coins to circulation (the history of the emergence of money mentions that such cases have already happened), but this again did not lead to anything good.
Prosecutor General Prince Ya. P. Shakhovskoy advised to introduce paper money into circulation, as they were called at that time - “tsiduls” or “tsidulki” (from the German word Zettel - “paper money”), but for some time they forgot about his proposal .
This issue was resolved in 1768 under Catherine II. The author of the proposal was Count K. E. Sievers, who submitted a note to the Empress, which provided reasonable arguments for the introduction of paper banknotes. As a result, a manifesto was published, in which a group of banks was appointed, which were supposed to exchange coins for paper notes.
To avoid inflation, paper money was not supposed to exceed the state stock of precious metals, and the total capital of banks amounted to one million copper rubles. The first banknotes were 25, 50, 75 and 100 rubles.
As you can see, the history of the emergence of money shows that people have always strived for comfort. Modern money is gradually moving into a more convenient electronic form for consumers. And it is possible that in the near future plastic cards will completely replace the banknotes familiar to us.
Now it's hard to imagine modern society without banknotes and very much in the world depends on them. There are wars, huge skyscrapers are being built, people are dying and a new life is born. Much of the world is tied to money. But what not everyone knows. Let's try to open this veil.
In the old days, for many centuries, mankind did not buy goods, but exchanged them. That is, barter was the main process in the trade relations of different cultures and peoples of the world.
Of course, ordinary robbery was often practiced as a means to take possession of the necessary goods, but then they were very seriously punished for this, up to the death penalty.
In-kind exchange of products and goods in some cases was very difficult to make, because each of the owners did not want to give away their goods for cheap, and on this basis there were constant disputes, which often resulted in assault and the use of weapons.
It was necessary to solve something with this, so the first type of convertible currency appeared. They became cereals and livestock, since these goods were needed everywhere. Everything seems to be fine, but their number strongly depended on the crop in given year and from the loss of livestock. Therefore, such a system, after a short existence, has sunk into oblivion.
The appearance of the first gold coins in ancient Europe dates back to 687 BC, and they were first made in Lydia. And after about half a century, this innovation has spread everywhere.
But historians say that even earlier than in Europe, the first metal money appeared in ancient China. They were minted from copper, and their difference from European ones was the presence of a hole in the center, which was used for their transfer and transportation. This method of minting in China lasted until the 20th century AD, and even today many such coins can be found.
Money appeared much later than the formation National economy: at first, the ancient tribes used the means of exchange (cattle, fish, jewelry was exchanged for bread, meat, fabrics), and different peoples used various means for exchange. For example, in Mexico, cocoa beans were used as "money", on the islands of Oceania - pearls and shells, in Alaska and Canada - the skins of valuable animals.
Such commodity-exchange relations were not very convenient and it became necessary to create a universal exchange equivalent. That's how money came about. At first they were metal (when manufactured in different countries used materials such as copper, silver, bronze). Paper money appeared only in 1910 and since then has firmly entered our lives.
The first metal money, minted coins, appeared in the 7th century BC. They quickly spread throughout the world, as they had a high cost at light weight and volume. In addition, they could be conveniently transported, stored, combined, crushed.
With the expansion of commodity-production relations, a need arose to increase the value of the exchange equivalent, and silver and gold became the main money. 910 was a turning point in the history of the development of money - it was at this time that paper money appeared in China. But if earlier their essence consisted simply in obligations to issue natural money (of the corresponding value), today paper banknotes themselves are money.
Before the advent of money in Russia, cowrie shells and precious metal necklaces were accepted as payment for goods and services. Around the eighth century, dirhems appeared in Russia, silver kopecks, which were called kuns. In the 10th century, kuns were replaced by Western European money, denarii - coins made of thin silver, on the surface of which there were primitive images of kings. By the end of the 10th century, Kievan Rus launched its own minting of gold and silver coins.
As for the first paper money in Russia, they appeared under Catherine II in 1769: issued paper banknotes from 25 to 100 rubles could be freely exchanged for copper money. Around the same time, two banks were opened in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The very word "banknote" in translation from English means "bank record" - this name was not chosen by chance, this is clearly evidenced by the history of paper money.
So, the monetary system (both in Russia and in the world) began to be actively improved with the advent of banks. Banks initially performed exclusively the function of custodians of valuables and money. When depositing money, a person received a certificate, which indicated the amount that was deposited with the bank. This made it possible to pay not with heavy coins, but with light and convenient certificates. Over time, the certificates themselves began to equate to money.
The history of money is very interesting. The first money arose in ancient times, and has survived to this day, but in a completely different form. Because of money there were wars, revolutions, change of governments and overthrow of kings. Are they the engine of history? Or is their role limited only to purchasing power? To answer these questions, we will learn the history of the appearance of money, the ways of their evolution and the history of distribution around the world.
Ancient times
History of money originates from the time of the existence of ancient tribes. But the money of those times was significantly different from the money of today. It was rather not money, but a means of exchange. So, for example, in pastoral tribes, money was cattle, in Pomeranian settlements, money was fish, which was exchanged for bread and meat so necessary for the tribe. It is known that different peoples had their own items that served them as money:
In Mexico, cocoa beans were money;
In Canada, Alaska and Siberia, ancient ancestors used the skins of valuable animals as money;
Among some tribes of South America and on the islands of Oceania, seashells or pearls were money;
The tribes of New Zealand used stones with a hole in the middle instead of money.
In some places grain or salt served as money. The use of commodity-money made it possible to exchange them with other tribes or use them for their intended purpose in their economy. But they were extremely inconvenient to use. Therefore, there was a need for another, more practical form of payment.
Kauri. Photo from shells-of-aquarius.com
The Afars, a warlike tribe that inhabits the Danakil Desert in northeastern Ethiopia, have a legend that their land was once extremely rich in gold. The Afars, bathing in luxury, became conceited and angered God. All their gold turned into salt, and the tribe instantly became impoverished. To this day, it lives from hand to mouth, wandering with its lean cattle through the meager pastures of Danakil. But the Afars believe that sooner or later they will redeem themselves and God will turn the salt into gold again.
However, salt turned out to be not much worse than gold: everyone needs it and is always in price, that is, it is liquid; stored for an arbitrarily long time without losing essential properties; easily divided (exchanged). So for the Afars for a whole millennium (until the 20th century), salt became the main means of exchange. For example, an Afar who raises sheep wants to buy milk from his neighbor who raises cows. However, the sheep have not yet had time to grow wool, so barter is not possible. He exchanges milk for salt and is all the more pleased that, unlike milk, it does not turn sour and he can put it aside in reserve.
Salt is not a conditional commodity, unlike money, but a consumed one, so it is not yet a monetary system in the classical sense. But this is no longer a completely natural exchange, since merchants can accept salt not only as a product, but also to preserve wealth (vegetables will rot, meat will go rotten, and nothing will happen to salt), and for subsequent use as a means of payment.
Gold has two important advantages over salt, both of which stem from its rarity. First, it packs the same value in a much smaller volume, which means it's much more portable. Secondly, there is a much lower risk that a new huge source of gold (deposit or import) will be discovered and its value will drop sharply.
In the most ancient agricultural societies of Mesopotamia, three millennia BC, barley was the most important commodity. The smallest "bargaining unit" was shekel- 180 barley grains (usually about 11 grams). Barley shekels could express the value of any product or service.
Over time, the shekel became a universal measure of weight, they began to measure, in particular, silver. In the laws of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (about the 18th century BC) - the oldest surviving set of written laws - fines were indicated in silver shekels. The value of barley was highly dependent on the crop, so silver was a much more stable "currency".
In feudal Japan until the 19th century, the main, so to speak, unit of wealth was coca- the amount of rice that can feed an adult during the year (about 278 liters, or about 150 kilograms). If a landowner was said to have 30,000 koku, this did not mean that he had that much rice. It was the total value of all his assets - productive land, livestock, labor, reduced to the most understandable unit of measurement. Coku measured the wealth of even those possessions where rice was not grown at all.
Among the nomads of the Eurasian steppes, the role of a universal equivalent was played by cattle: with its help they paid taxes and penalties, redeemed brides, exchanged bread, tar, high-quality weapons and other necessary goods from settled neighbors.
All these "natural currencies" had a common problem: they were extremely volatile, that is, their value relative to other goods fluctuated greatly throughout the year and depended on many natural factors (crops could die from rain or drought, livestock could die). In this sense, minerals were much more reliable. Gold and silver turned out to be ideal: they are quite common and at the same time quite rare, they do not corrode, do not oxidize, they are easy to recognize. For small transactions, copper was most often used: it is also quite chemically stable and is common on all continents. From the use of metals as "natural currencies" by weight (in the form of sand or bars) there was one step left to coinage.
But the most famous example of commodity money is, of course, cowrie shells. They had two important advantages. First, they are almost impossible to fake. Secondly, a huge margin was provided by simply moving shells from point A to point B: say, in the Niger Delta, the most important trading hub of West Africa, they cost a thousand (!) Times more than in the Maldives, where they were mined the most.
Kauri were the most durable of the "natural currencies": the first evidence of their use as a means of payment dates back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, and they were forced out of circulation only by the beginning of the 20th century. They were used as a means of payment throughout Africa, India, Indo-China, the Pacific Islands and among North American Indians from the Pacific coast to the Great Lakes. And in China, at one time, coins were even banned (to stop counterfeiting money), and cowries were the main means of payment. Even the traditional Chinese character for "money" originated from a stylized image of a shell.
From the 16th to the 19th century, kauri were a key element in the slave trade system. Europeans bought them in the same Maldives for gold, for rice (which was brought from India) or for some other goods. Thousands of tons of shells were brought to Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch ports. Ships bound for slave markets in the Niger Delta or Zanzibar often carried nothing but cowries. Slaves were driven mainly from the interior of Africa (Uganda, Congo, Zaire), where kauri was the most common "currency" and cost, of course, much more than on the coast.
The expanding cotton and sugarcane plantations in the New World demanded more and more slaves. Accordingly, Europeans brought more and more kauri to Africa. The natural result of this was inflation. In the second half of the 19th century, so many shells were needed to buy a batch of slaves in the interior of Africa that the profits from reselling the slaves to planters no longer covered the cost of transporting cowries. Thus began the decline of the slave trade, and with it the "shell economy."
Five hundred years ago, a dozen cowrie shell beads could buy a slave in Zanzibar. Nowadays, on the same Zanzibar, a string of such beads can be bought as a souvenir for a dollar and a half.
Commodity money as a simple and reliable means of payment arises almost inevitably in any society where there is no established banking system. A textbook example is the Soviet economy of the collapse period, when "normal" money was rapidly becoming cheaper and there was nothing to buy with it, and the people willingly used vodka, cigarettes and other enduring values in mutual settlements. In prison, where money is simply forbidden, cigarettes usually play their role. Those who read Jack London should remember that the heroes of his stories about Alaska almost never pay in dollars, preferring gold dust. founding father economics Adam Smith, a Scot by birth, wrote in the 18th century that in his homeland, peasants often pay with nails: "ordinary" money is still not much to spend on anything, but something always needs to be nailed somewhere.
metal money
Gradually money becomes metal. And in the seventh century BC, minted coins appear. They quickly spread around the world. This is easy to explain, because coins are convenient to store, transport, crush and combine. They have a high cost with a small volume and weight.
In most countries, silver, copper or bronze acted as the metal for minting coins. And only in Egypt and Assyria gold was used as money as far back as two millennia BC. With the growth of commodity-production relations, it became necessary to increase the value of the exchange equivalent. From this point on, gold and silver become the main money.
Paper money
History of money received a new round of development with the advent of paper money. They appeared in 910 in China. And in Russia, the first paper money was introduced under Catherine II in 1769.
With the advent of banks, it was they who became the custodians of money and basic values. When depositing money, a person received a certificate from the bank. It indicated how much the banker had in custody and the bearer of this certificate was supposed to receive a certain amount of money from the bank. This made it possible to pay not with coins, but with these certificates. A little time passed, and the certificates themselves began to be equated with real money. This is the history of paper money. And the very word "banknote" originates from the English words "bank note" and in translation means "bank record".
And if earlier economic entity paper money was the obligation to issue natural money, now the banknotes themselves are the same money.
Emergence of state central banks
The first such bank appeared in Sweden in 1661. The main tasks of the state central bank had control over banking operations in the country and responsibility for the state national currency, including for its production.
Other countries did not immediately follow Sweden's lead. For example, central bank in France was founded 140 years later, and in Russian Empire National Bank appeared in 1860. And only in 1913 the Federal Reserve System was founded in the USA. Prior to its introduction, dollar bills were issued by individual US banks, and differed from each other in design and size.
The beginning of globalization
In 1944, the Bretton Woods International Conference was held, at which an agreement was made to peg the dollar to the gold rate and this continued until 1971. It was the dollar that became the international currency on which the international trade. The conference decided to create World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It is from the Bretton Woods Conference that the modern process of globalization of the whole world begins.
Bank cards
In 1950, the world's first credit card Diners Club, to pay for restaurant visits. And in 1952, the American bank Franklin National Bank issued the first bank credit card.
Nowadays bank cards surprise no one. History of money continues and gains momentum. According to statistics, the average American currently has about ten plastic cards for different purposes.
Computers in the service of financiers
1972 was marked by the involvement of computers in financial sector. For example, in the United States, a centralized electronic network is being created to account for bank checks. And in 1973, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) was created. The creators of this system were 239 banks representing 15 countries of the world. For the first time for the implementation of interbank money transfers the teletype has ceased to be used.
Beginning in 1977, personal computers appeared in retail, and this marked the computerization of various sectors of the economy and life, the creation of new forms of money and the emergence of the Internet.
