Page 15 - University English for non-speacalist

Money

Money has various uses in the modern world: it is a measure of the value of goods and
services, a means of exchanging such goods and services, and a way to store up buying power
so that one can use it later.

As a measure of value, it is of the very greatest use. If I work in an office, how can my
employer know what to pay me for my services if there is no generally recognized measure of
value? He may decide to pay me a certain number of loaves of bread each week; but then I
shall have to exchange some of these loaves for other things that I need; and how am I to know
how many loaves I should give for a pair of shoes or for the rent of my house, for example?

Money gives us a very useful means of measuring such relative values. My services are worth,
let us say, 7 pounds a week to my employer; my rent is thirsty shillings a wee; a pair of shoes
costs one pound and so on.

Money is also of very great use as a means of exchanging goods and services. If, for
example, I am a shoemaker, it will not be at all convenient to me always to have to exchange
the shoe I make for other goods or services. A doctor may want to buy a pair of shoes from me,
then have to find something else that I want, or look for another shoemaker who needs him.
Without money, the tax collector would come back to his office with an extraordinary
collection of objects.

Considered as a means of storing up buying power, money has good and bad points. It
can more easily be kept a long time than such things as food, which rots, or buildings, which

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