“Money as we know it didn’t exist 1000 years ago. They bartered using commodities, goods, and pieces of rare metals (gold, silver and copper in particular- which are really just commodities). “
Ohhh, yes it did. The first metal coins were minted in Lydia (in modern Turkey) in about 640 BCE according to most historians and numismatists (though I wonder about it, because it doesn’t take the machatzis hashekel into account) and they were minted, they had set values, and they were NOT traded as commodities (they weren’t even considered bullion- even though they had precious metals, there was less of it in each coin than the value of each coin) but as actual money. The Greeks and Romans indisputably had coins (you can buy them cheap on Amazon, they’re that plentiful) and I have no idea what kind of currency the Arabs used at that time, but money was NOT a foreign concept.
Money, of course, when it’s not based on a bullion-coin system (as very few civilizations have ever had), is pretty subjective- perhaps today more so, but it’s really a difference of degrees.
All of which is just the response of an amateur numismatist who got riled up. My real question: SO WHAT? Does the fact that money can be moved from one person to another without a single coin, bill or chicken being transferred, just a bunch of signals on the internet, mean that money doesn’t have the same purpose and that a handout is a handout and a salary is a salary? What exactly is the Rambam saying that can’t be applied today? There may be something, but the currency and definition of money is NOT it- as he’s not talking about money, he’s talking about the means to live, which is relevant whether you’re trading gold, beads or credit card information.
Of course the Rambam says that one who can should learn- but is his definition of who can the same as ours?