New Money Economy: Acquisitive individualism, once the pastime of Bronze Age kings, now became the general watchword of the age: for the first time in world history it is said that "money makes the man." The introduction of a money economy in Greece in the 6th century B. c. was accompanied by social and political upheavals. The supremacy of the landed aristocracy was undermined by the emancipation of the small peasants and craftsmen from the village and their reorientation toward the market in the city.
This type of coinage made it possible to place the entire economy, and not just international trade, on a money basis.
The effect of the new money economy coinage can be measured by the transformation of the agora of the Greek city, originally the place for political and religious assembly, into a marketplace. The small landowner could now switch from subsistence farming to specialized agriculture; the craftsman and trader not only profited from the new money economy market for cheap goods, but were emancipated from the limitations on the accumulation of profit inherent in a natural economy of exchange in kind.
GRESHAM'S LAW, gresh'amz, in economics, is usually stated as "bad money drives out good." The law stems from the fact that money has a value both as money and as a commodity in the open market. The former value is set arbitrarily by law and is relatively fixed; the latter is determined by supply and demand and varies from time to time, "Good money" has a higher value as a commodity than as money and will disappear from circulation.
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