Rethinking the theory of money: a study of the origins, nature and function of money

• Ano de defesa: 2024
• Autor(a) principal: Girotto, Vitor Guidorzzi [UNESP]
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
• Palavras-chave em Português: Moeda; Crédito; Dívidas; Bancos; Mercados; Money; Credit; Debt; Market; Banks
• Link de acesso: https://hdl.handle.net/11449/258207

Despite its millennial existence and the vast literature about it, money remains one of humanity’s greatest enigmas and one device of great importance for socioeconomic organization. Economic literature has provided two different explanations to the phenomenon of money: on the one hand, money is a commodity; on the other hand, a credit. The general objective of this thesis is to determine the nature of money. In that attempt, this investigation followed specific objectives: (1) to revisit, synthesize, and present two different theories of money, namely, the Theory of Commodity Money and the Theory of Credit Money, considering their main arguments regarding the origin, nature and functions of money and credit; (2) to present points of divergence among scholars associated with each theory; (3) to introduce eventual points of convergence between such theories; and (4) to analyze money by using an interdisciplinary framework. The methodological procedures followed in this thesis consisted of a bibliographic survey in Economics and other social sciences, which helped delimit the theories candidates for the study of the nature of money. Afterwards, a method for collecting and grouping things according to shared and identifiable properties was selected, aiming to reveal implicit or hidden properties of the object. Besides the regular practice of analyzing money from its functions, other properties associated with it were considered as parameters to limit the scope of this research: money, credit and debt. The selected literature was summarized and presented as part of the literature review, providing the theoretical framework for the development of the analytical part of this research, which followed mostly an inductive approach. The quest to investigate the essence of money turned out being an investigation of both the nature of credit and money, for money is credit. This conclusion has been established by integrating procedures methods and resorting to interdisciplinary studies to support that money is credit. Anthropological studies helped define the best approach method, namely induction. Regarding the procedure methods, a comparative methodology which integrated economics, history, accounting, law, and anthropology studies was employed. This interdisciplinary approach has ratified most general conclusions presented by heterodox economic literature. Credit is, first and foremost, a social and moral relation. When exercised in an economic way, as purchasing power, it creates a set of obligations. One’s credit is another’s debt. A person’s reputation became quantifiable with the establishment of a unit of account employed for registering credit/debt relations, namely, money of account. Initially, pure accounting activities are present. Currency emerged only afterwards, in connection to the emergence of organized markets, to transfer debts. When in material form, money represents a tokenized credit/debt. When in abstract form, credit represents a contractual relation between economic agents or as accounting registers. Following a circuitist approach, credit is created, circulated, and then destroyed when the debt is extinguished. Therefore, money’s sole function is that of serving as a means of payment to release one from debt. Since only a credit can liquidate a debt, the credit essence of money is, again, reinforced.