> We can't really go back and figure out the exact history of how gold emerged as money actually, we can. it's called historical anthropology, and books upon b

> We can't really go back and figure out the exact history of how gold emerged as money actually, we can. it's called historical anthropology, and books upon books have been written on the topic. to summarize those books for you: the chartalists were basically right. standardized currency and thus stable markets took off once governments did what governments do: pass laws to standardize things. also, contrary to your assertion that the only "monetization" event was "how gold emerged as money", we've actually gone through a number of cycles back and forth between gold/precious metal-backed money and credit-backed money. metal-backed money tends to hold during periods of imperialism and warfare (where the expected lifetime of a given state is low due to risk of being conquered/defeated, and soldiers have high exposure to other markets), while credit-backed money tends to emerge during periods of stability and peace (where states are more stable and trust-worthy than the rate at which some given metal comes out of the ground).