Did you know back in the middle ages, lords and merchants would register their finances and operations using a master book? did you also know i took that information from fantasy video games? yeah. Despite the fantastical setting it does raise you a question on how did people deal with money back then.
The trading, what was considered a fair price, how was this tied to the politics and religious themes of the time. For example. There was a concept by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the theological sum in which the monk would address price as a deeply moral question. He understood greed as a mortal sin but also that if a merchant did not have the incentive of profit, it would end his trade and the community would lose it's provider.
So he advised for a fair price which includes a decent profit whereas excluding excessive profit which was sinful. The fair price was what the buyer was willing to pay for while being sincere. It was a suggestion for it's time but not necessarily and obligation, although some merchants have been tortured in the past for what was considered unfair price, condemned as thieves.
And so, morality and money, have been tied together since the beginning of the trade. Where money was and is of symbolic value. Hence why virtual money, assets and cryptocurrency is even considered of economic value. Even sugar, spices and rice where once at the same level of gold in the history of commerce due to it's high demand, low or exclusive availability. Specially in situations of scarcity of something material like food or wood, but also immaterial, like a cultural asset, an emotional need for a population such as non essential goods, fabricated needs by marketing or some cults.
But the history of money helped in a way in the sense that bartering was no longer necessary. Previously, it was necessary to have something that the other person wanted in order to buy something. Now, with money, it was no longer necessary. Everything was bought with money, and the other person could keep it to use when the right moment came. In this way, money helped to measure the value of things.
Beyond the idea of using currency, other forms of money were theorized and practiced, such as the creation of banks and the provision of credit or loans. With the concept of banking, as developed by the Medici family, the idea was economies of scale: instead of an individual drafting a loan contract, a bank would do it in droves at a fraction of the cost; risk diversification by spreading credit geographically with partners sharing profits and losses; and asset transformation, with traders being able to deposit and borrow; however, this last one leads to a major discussion of the fundamental problem of exchange, which I will not discuss here to not make this too long cause this is just me studying something as someone who likes to research, so byeee.
