chapter 1

Izabella Curtis 
Mr. Roddy 
GPHC
8 April 2020
Ascent of Money 
Chapter 1 
Humans have always had a connection to money- this goes all the way back to ancient societies. Though this abstract concept of “money” has come a long way. Humans have come from trading items to gold bars, paper bills, and now virtual money. If we did not have this need for money we would not have developed to the society we have now. The way humans use currency and assign value to items have not only changed over our history but have impacted our day-to-day lives on a bigger scale. Since money has had such an impact on our lives it has a large effect on human behavior and trust between others. This impacts our behavior by our shopping habits, education, political leanings and personality traits (greed, generosity, pride, and humility ). We live in a capitalist society full of private ownership and operation for profit. Meaning that lower income families are forced into extreme measures like theft, debt, and taking out multiple loans. The way money has such a large amount of power over global politics and people is a huge problem in our society. In our seminar our conversation was surrounded around the Jewish communities business savvy system of interest and banking. Due to their system they were excluded from society. Cristians would not dare to owe interest because that was considered a sin. We also talked about the use of clay tables and what their importance was. There are clear parallels when it comes to money with human behavior and the amount of power it has over life. I found the reading to be very interesting. I never really thought about how far back money has gone in human history and human societies. It is kind of sad how much power money has. It breaks relationships, it determines the level of education and it influences who your friends are.

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