... money never existed?

If nobody ever had thought about the idea of money, our world would look completely different to what we know today. Let us imagine that you wanted to buy a tomato to make yourself a Greek salad. You go to the farmer who has lots of tomatoes and ask him if you can get some. In our world you could offer the farmer money, but what if there was no money to begin with?

Without money you would have to trade: Ask the farmer what he needs as an exchange. Give him what he wants and he will give you the tomatoes in return! As you can see, this is much more complicated than just using money. With money, you can pay him and the farmer can go and buy whatever he wants with the money without having you involved.

Using money, you have a universal good that is always needed by everyone. Whomever you ask, the farmer, the teacher, the construction site worker or the investment banker, all of them will accept money as a payment!

That’s why money is so important. Without money our society would be much more primitive, because all the trading decreases the productivity of the people and makes transactions complicated and time-consuming. All these lost resources would mean that there would be much less time for innovation and scientific or cultural advance, resetting society’s status to times before civilization existed.

Next time you buy something at the supermarket you should thank money for existing and making our lives so much easier.