First published 2009
On the Origins of Money
On the Origins of Money by Carl Menger is available as a free PDF and EPUB download at freecapitalists.org, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
- Carl Menger
- First published
- 2009
- Format
- PDF and EPUB
- Pages
- 56
- ISBN
- 9781933550596
- Publisher
- Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn
- License
- Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Written in the same year that he testified before the Currency Commission in Austria-Hungary, and published in English in 1892, Carl Menger explains that it is not government edicts that create money but instead the marketplace. Individuals decide what the most marketable good is for use as a medium of exchange. “Man himself is the beginning and the end of every economy,” Menger wrote, and so it is with deciding what is to be traded as money.
"Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution. Sanction by the authority of the state is a notion alien to it. "
This is the first time this essay has been in print in more than a century!
Introduction by Doug French
Questions
About this book and this copy
- Is On the Origins of Money free to download?
- Yes. The complete 56-page PDF and EPUB downloads directly from this page (1.3 MB). There is no signup, no account and no paywall.
- How long is On the Origins of Money?
- 56 pages, 10 chapters, and about 7,572 words in the edition this archive serves.
- Can I reuse or republish On the Origins of Money?
- This edition is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, so yes, on that licence's terms. Check the deed for what attribution it requires.
- Who wrote On the Origins of Money?
- Carl Menger (1840–1921) was an Austrian economist and the founder of the Austrian School of economics. This archive holds 7 of Menger's works.
What's in it
10 chapters · 7,572 words · free to read here
- Foreword by Douglas E. French
- I. Introduction
- II. Attempts at Solution Hitherto
- III. The Problem of the Genesis of a Medium of Exchange
- IV. Commodities as More or Less Saleable
- V. Concerning the Causes of the Different Degrees of Saleableness in Commodities
- VI. On the Genesis of Media of Exchange
- VII. The Process of Differentiation between Commodities which have become Media of Exchange and the Rest
- VIII. How the Precious Metals Became Money
- IX. Influence of the Sovereign Power
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More by Carl Menger
Collected Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume I
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Collected Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume II
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Collected Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume III
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Collected Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume IV
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Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences
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Principles of Economics
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