ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what money is and where it comes from. Economics offers a narrow description of money's functions: a store of wealth, a unit of account and a medium of exchange. People engage in exchange to fulfil their needs, to provide for themselves and their families. This is why most of the world is preoccupied with money. This is the primary function of money, which Aristotle calls "necessary". It explains money's essential purpose, but little else. It tells them nothing about how money can create peaceful societies and inter-generational ties, permit risk-taking, dominate one's sense of status or cause manias and panics. To explain these effects, the chapter looks at four philosophical properties of money: interdependence, control of the future, measurement and allure. A full understanding of money's capacity to cause social instability and social progress requires awareness of how these four properties of money affect people as individuals and collectively.
