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Trust as a Key Variable of Sustainable Development and Public Happiness: A Historical and Theoretical Example Regarding the Creation of Money

Author

Listed:
  • Nicola Genovese

    (Professor of Economics, University of Messina)

  • Maria Grazia La Spada

    (University of Messina, Department of Economics, SEAM)

Abstract
This article purports to trace the origin of money on the basis of factors in interpersonal relationships, affecting a sustainable development and public happiness, namely trust, reciprocity and the concept of we-rationality. Both the historical approach and the one based on traditional economic theory have been found inadequate mainly because they did not take into account these factors. The hypothesis expounded in the paper is that these values underlaid the beginning of economic activity. Initially economic activity was carried out within small human groups. In such groups interpersonal relations were not based on individual self-interest. As a matter of fact, there is historical evidence supporting the notion that the first exchanges were gift-giving and were made possible by trust and reciprocity as expounded by Polanyi (1957) and Sudgen (2000) among others. When the exchanges strengthened between elements of various groups all with the same values and moral characteristics the process toward the creation of money started, without any intrinsic value and the presence of any superior authority. In the paper it is also hypothesized that the creation of money is one of the basic factors in the progress of economic and social activity, together with ancient phenomena as language ad writing. Finally, the paper advocates that in future the economic activity be permeated by those moral values on which a sustainable development can be based. This will, in turn, increase the rate of economic and social growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicola Genovese & Maria Grazia La Spada, 2014. "Trust as a Key Variable of Sustainable Development and Public Happiness: A Historical and Theoretical Example Regarding the Creation of Money," Working Papers 2014.10, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2014.10
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bacharach, Michael, 1999. "Interactive team reasoning: A contribution to the theory of co-operation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 117-147, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sustainable Development; Public Happiness; Origin of Money; Behaviour Economics; Exchanges Between Primitive Populations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • B15 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary
    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General

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