Money in a Theory of Exchange

“In primitive traffic the economic man is awaking but very gradually to an understanding of the economic advantages to be gained by exploitation of existing opportunities of exchange...Consider how seldom it is the case, that a commodity owned by somebody is of less value in use than another commodity owned by someone else! And for the latter just the opposite relation is the case. But how much more seldom does it happen that these two bodies meet!...Even in the relatively simple and so often recurring case, where an economic unit, A, requires a commodity possessed by B, and B requires one possessed by C, while C wants one that is owned by A—even here, under a rule of mere barter, the exchange of the goods in question would as a rule be of necessity left undone.” — Carl Menger, “On the Origin of Money,” The Economic Journal (June 1892), p. 242.