EXCHANGE, WEALTH AND MONEY
EXCHANGE, WEALTH AND MONEY Any economy is a social construct created from an accumulation of completed voluntary exchanges of goods and non-financial services and money plays a leading facilitative role in the process of it’s creation. This article is intended to explain what the natural basis of money is, and there is such. This is needed because our current money system operates as though there is no natural p hen o m e non on which units of currency, i.e. money, could and should be based. Exchange underlies both wealth and money so I want to begin with an exploration of exchange . EXCHANGE The Wikipedia defines exchange as: An act of giving one thing and receiving another (especially of the same kind) in return. The Wikipedia also defines ‘kind’ as: A group of people, or things, having similar characteristics. For our purposes here, a definition of exchange , that includes of the ‘same kind’, is too narrow. We need to recognise a more general me