Money
The term money derives from the Latin moneta, meaning mint or coin, and is most often defined as a medium of exchange and measure of value. Even from its earliest use as a replacement for barter, money was often a technologically produced metal coin and thus associated with developments in the science of metallurgy and metal technology. In the Nicomachean Ethics (350 B.C.E.), Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) offers a first glimpse of the ethical implications of money as technology when he rejects moneymaking as the proper end of human life on the basis that it has only instrumental value. With the rise of modern scientific economics came efforts to formulate monetary policies for states, and the use and management of money became more closely associated with science, technology, and normative issues. All this is underscored by the German philosopher-sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) who identifies money as the pivotal technological tool that paved the way for the modern technological approach to the world.
Historical Considerations
One of the earliest forms of money was cowrie shells (c. 1200 B.C.E.); based metal (1000 B.C.E. in China) preceded precious metal (700 B.C.E. in the Middle East) coinage. At least as early as Aristotle, whose views have influenced classical and modern discourses on the topic, money was recognized as a medium of exchange and measure of value.
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