LENT SERIES – 1 MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND ...

goddess Athena Nikephoros, and the Greek letters that tell us this is the coin of KingLysimachus. He is using the coin, and its images, to assert his authority. Thispractice continues – in China images of Mao Tse-Tung; in the United States theimage of George Washington; in our own land the image of Britannia. Moneybecame, quickly, not simply a means of trade but a way of displaying and exertingpower.This power of money could be used for religious purposes as the Gold Coins of Abdal-Malik minted in Damascus in 696-697 AD reveal. Abd al-malik “was the mostimportant Muslim leader since Muhammad himself, because he transformed whatmight have been merely a string of ephemeral conquests into a state that wouldsurvive in one form or another until the end of the First World War” (Macgregorp253). He minted the first overtly Islamic coinage and has his image stamped on it.But within a few years these coins disappeared and were replaced by one thatsimply had text on both sides. Text drawn from the Quran. It thus shows that in thissociety “the dominant power... is now not the emperor but the word of God.”(MacGregor p254).In US currency this could be seen to be echoed in the use of the phrase “In God wetrust” on all their currency.Coins first appeared in China around the same time as Croesus gold coins in Lydiabut China is the originator of paper money. It first appeared with the Ming emperor.Around 1400 AD “Someone in China printed a value on a piece of paper and askedeveryone else to agree with them that the paper was actually worth what it said itwas. You could say that the paper notes, like the Darling children in Peter Pan, weresupposed to be ‘as good as gold’, or in this case as good as copper – literally worththe number of copper coins printed on the note. The whole modern banking systemof paper and credit is built on this one simple act of faith. (MacGregor p396). Thewhole phrase on our money “I promise to pay the bearer on demand” is rooted in thispaper representing real metal held elsewhere.In the late sixteenth century the Spanish empire produced “pieces of eight” whichbecame the first truly global currency. They were used across the whole Spanishempire and between Spain and the other nations. Spain was enormously wealthy.The growth of this world currency caused problems in Ming China, creating financialchaos there. In Spain itself inflation happened and a gap developed; “the wealth ofthe empire in both political and economic terms often seemed more apparent thanreal...” one writer in 1600 describes it like this “The cause of the ruin of Spain is thatriches ride on the wind, and have always so ridden in the form of contract deeds, ofbills of exchange, of silver and gold instead of goods that bear fruit and which,because of their greater worth, attract to themselves riches from foreign parts, andso our inhabitants are ruined. We therefore see that the reason for the lack of goldand silver money in Spain is that there is too much of it and Spain is poor becauseshe is rich.” (MacGregor p443)MacGregor’s 99 th object in his history is the Credit Card. He deliberately choosesone issued by a Hong Kong bank in the United Arab Emirates. He notes “Bank creditis, for the first time in history, no longer the prerogative of the elite, and – maybe as a