The Real History of Money Island (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Division Of Land And Introduction Of Money. The inhabitants of our island progressed in agriculture and in the arts. The periodical divisions of the land, however, retarded improvement. Nobody likes to manure and drain a field and then to lose it at the periodical division because the lot gives him the comparatively worthless laod previously occupied by a lazy neighbour. Our islanders did not know that, by introducing a good lease system, they might retain all the advantages of land communism without discouraging individual effort. They assumed that to make the land private property was the only way out of the difficulty, and they acted accordingly. Fortunately they did not thus divide all the land, but left a great part common property, which they used for the purposes of grazing and timber supply, and for pleasure and hunting grounds. Another forward step was taken. As the new inventions in the arts brought new wants, the islanders gradually ceased each making everything he needed. They divided the work according to their different tastes and abilities. They found that in this way, and by exchanging with each other their products, they could produce goods both in larger quantities and of better quality. As the number of these goods increased, barter became very inconvenient. A producer having a commodity to sellhad to look out for somebody who not only needed such a commodity, but who also haply had something to give in exchange, that he (the said producer) needed. Too much time was lost in this way, and they finally agreed to determine upon one special commodity, which everyone should accept in payment, so that whoever wanted to sell anything had only to find somebody else who wanted it and who was willing to buy it with the special commodity, which they...