Aristotles (384-322 bce) seminal contributions to the economics tradition

The great Aristotle held that money develops from barter and its original function or goal was to overcome the difficulties in bartering; that money is originally a good which has real value and is coined and stamped; and that credit comes from another (bad) use of money, where it is lent to others in return for interest. Yet, Aristotle alludes to another tradition that coined money is a mere sham, is merely conventional, and does not have to be based upon any particular good; also, that credit could come from the exchange of "gifts", which suggests that money, as the measure of what is owed, comes from credit. As Schumpeter pointed out, these positions ‚Ä" both the dominant ones emphasized by Aristotle but also the subordinate ones ‚Ä" framed scholarly monetary debates into the modern era.