Evolution of Currency 货币演变

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify different conflict styles.

COMEDIAN: Has is it ever happened to you? You're out somewhere ... you need something ... but you find that you've got no cash on you ... not a dime ... In this day and age, it's increasingly likely that you can't even exchange what you have for what you want ... In olden times, it was commonplace to barter for what you wanted ... say you needed some sheep.

COMEDIAN1: But all you have is a cow. Well, if you find a person with some sheep who wants your cow, you can exchange goods. Simple! At some point in history, some bright spark had the idea of attributing value to certain objects which you could use to buy things. For example, found along the shores of the Indian Ocean, Cowrie shells were used as a form of currency in parts of Middle East, India and China.

COMEDIAN2: In western Africa, shell money was tender up until the middle of the nineteenth century. If you wanted to purchase something in Ghana quartz stones would come in handy to get you the goods you needed ... and if you found yourself in the south Pacific's Papua New Guinea, teeth of dogs, whales and sharks would have been useful if you needed to carry out any financial transactions. In the sixth century AD, coins first came into use in ancient Greece being made from materials such as tin, gold and silver they were generally harder than shells. What all these forms of currency had in common was that the actual object or the materials they were made from were not easy to find or get hold of ...

COMEDIAN3: Case in point being the cowry shells their value was, naturally, significantly lower in coastal areas where the shells came from. While these forms of money had currency in the areas they were used it wasn't exactly convenient to carry around. Bank notes were seen as a solution to this problem. Then, as now, bank notes were really a receipt, a promise. The bank looked after your money and promised to pay you back the value stated on the receipt or note.

COMEDIAN4: However, it wasn't until only about 2 years ago that bank notes became common currency. Looked at in this way, money is just an abstract idea about how much something is worth. In the electronic age money continues to become even more abstract. Salaries are usually paid directly into bank accounts and money seen as numbers on a computer screen. When we buy something, we often use a credit card rather than actual notes and coins.
COMEDIAN5: In fact, perhaps the future of money is that it will disappear altogether. And it sure beats having to carry a cow in your pocket.