A thought on the Asian financial crisis Connecting The Romans and current crisis

Essay by lanmiA-, May 2004

download word file, 4 pages 5.0

Downloaded 67 times

One may say that there is no bigger confusion in economic theory than the one that surrounds the phenomenon of money. This confusion exists because money is a complex phenomenon. Money isn't just an economic, but also a legal, social and psychological category. It is said that money represents one of the greatest cultural achievements of mankind. That is why economic theory alone cannot give an answer to what money is.

Money belongs to a group of the grandest inventions of man. During it's long evolution, from primitive and simple, to modern and complex form, money was changing it's meaning and inner value, so it's very hard to give a definition which can precisely explain it's nature. However, all big financial crisis, just as the last Asian currency crisis, lead to a conclusion that it's more than important to know the real meaning and functions of money, that is, that the definition of money doesn't only have a theoretical, but also a big practical value.

One of the most important missions of every theory, including economic, is to try and explain cause and consequences, that is, to clarify the causality of economic events. In explaining cause - consequential relations theory establishes hypothesis which later tries to prove.

The hypothesis: the integrity of money depends of the moral integrity of those who control it.

If we take a look at the Roman monetary history, it's clear that the monetary decay and chaos eventually lead to the fall of the economy and, in great part, the empire. Wells gives five causes that lead to the fall of the Roman Empire, of which the first and most important is: "…a complete absence of every kind of freely exercised thought, and any kind of organization, whose purpose would be expansion and development...