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I believe, the history of money is one of the few questions that you can ask 10 different random people, and get ten different answers. The concept of money is often overlooked, *because money is everywhere* and we take its existence for granted without critically thinking about its concept and/or how it came to form. 

When delving into the history of money, there are two main school of thoughts, one being the metallism view and the other being the chartalist. The metallism view of money stems from the quote: 

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## " When the inhabitants of one country become more dependent on those of another and they imported what they needed, and exported that they had too much of, money necessarily came into use"


### Aristotle, Ancient Greek Philosopher.
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The metallist view was that money sprang into existence as globalization and trade expanded; and as barter trade became less reliable, because of what economists call: the coincidence of wants. Lets say you were a seller selling mangoes, and willing trader would be willing to trade it for sheep, you would then  have to ensure that the sheep you have taken in payment for the mangoes you sold has a buyer willing to trade it for something you *want*. This was obviously a highly inefficient method of collecting payment for goods or services rendered. The only way around this was to create a clearly distinguished commodity that could function as the agreed upon standard to facilitate exchange. This commodity became **money** and through this thinking, money became a *thing* in its own right that carried an intrinsic value. Once money was thrust-ed in to its role as a trusted tool for exchanging value, this opened up the door for the creation of debt. 

The second view being the chartalist view, holds a very different view point as to the history of money, denying that barter ever existed. They point out to various anthropologists that who claim that to have visited places that currencies weren't used, and that found no evidence that barter was ever used as a primary system of exchange. Instead the charalist argue that money was created as a way of sorting our debts and obligations; in other words they are of the view that debt was created before money. They hypothesize that debt agreements likely evolved out of gift exchanges; which often generated the sense of *owing a favor*. Codified value systems then emerged from penalties ancient tribes use to met down on tribe members (i.e 5 chickens for theft), and from there humans thought about money as a system for resolving, offsetting and clearing these debts across the society. 

Given the wide disparity in both the metalist and chartalist views, they both have different views of the motivation and the role that the government played in the minting of money through the ages. To the metalists, the government played an endorsement role, ensuring that the quality of metal in each coin were not sub-par. And to the Chartalist, the state evolved to become the ultimate clearing house for debts and settlement of credits through its monopoly over taxes; which could only be paid with the currency of that state.