Functions of money

A medium of exchange

As we have already explained, the use of money as a medium of exchange makes possible a great extenuation of the principle of specialization. In an advanced society the use of money allows us to exchange hours of labour for an amazing variety of goods and services. We can exchange, for example, two weeks' labour for a holiday abroad just as eas­ily as we can exchange it for a piece of furniture or a year's rent on a television set. Such exchanges are taken for grant­ed yet they would be inconvenient without the use of money.

A measure of value

The first step in the use of money was probably the adoption of some commodity as a unit of account or mea­sure of value. Money, most likely, came into use within the barter system as a means whereby the values of different goods could be compared. The direct exchange of goods for goods would raise all sorts of problems regarding valuation. For example 'How many bushels of corn are equal in value to one sheep, if twenty sheep exchange for three cows and one cow exchanges for ten bushels of corn?' The problem of exchange rates is easily solved when all other commodities are valued in terms of a single commodity which then acts as a standard of value. Money now serves as such a standard and when all economic goods are given money values (i.e. prices), we know, immediately, the value of one commodity in terms of any other commodity.