Money: A thought

Any currency or precious metal or whatever that qualifies as 'money' is fundamentally a universally desired commodity, something that is readily accepted by human beings in exchange for their goods or services. The power of money is proportional to how widely and deeply desired it is by human beings, or to put it in a more complete manner, the usefulness of money is proportional to the size of the market.

Given the ever-increasing size of the market today, a fact propelled chiefly by the growth of technology (perhaps the chief factor), infrastructure and population, we can see why the attraction of money has increased manyfold from ages past. Simply put nowadays money can command a larger and ever-increasing sum and variety of goods and services. And as Adam Smith has pointed out, mankind seems to possess an innate instinct towards material betterment--an impulse that given half the chance of a little peace and order, will propel the 'natural progress of opulence' of a nation. Indeed, few human beings are completely immune to a desire or yearning for material progress. No matter our current inventory of goods, or the services we might already readily access, we always desire more and better.

If you have for instance the equivalent of a million dollars say 800 years ago in medieval Europe, you may perhaps be able to buy a piece of land, some cattle and sheep, and employ some farmers and soldiers to till and protect your land. You may also be able to squander a little of it on some exotic trinklet from the East. But that is about all you can do. Simply, you may have the money, but given the inferior technology, infrastructure and population, the available market is too small for it to have the signficance of modern times.

Today, the same million dollars can do the same as 800 years ago, but also much more. You can choose between a bewildering diversity of consumer and capital products, whether cars, furnitures, electronic gadgets, software, robots etc. etc. And the services you can command are also far increased, engineers, consultants, lawyers, doctors, scientists etc. And given the sheer size of the market today, one can also put the money into organizing profitable enterprises capable of generating even more capital for a good long time.

Is it therefore any wonder that today's age is the age of unprecedented commerce and the age of money's dominion?