Money Wisdom #27

"In a chapter entitled 'Who owns the Money?', Oresme lectured the Prince that, although it was his duty to put his stamp on money, he did so on behalf of the community,and he could claim neither lordship nor ownership of it. For money was a 'balancing instrument' invented by the community to facilitate the exchange of their natural wealth, and was therefore the community's common property. The central point of this treatise was that money was the possession of the community, naturally directed toward the common good, and therefore properly ordered and controlled by community decision."

Joel Kaye Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century p.155 (1998)