What Money Is and Ought To Be

Abstract

Teleological thinking about money reasons from what money is for to both how it ought to be used and what forms it should take. One type, found in Aristotle’s argument against usury, takes teleological considerations alone to decisively settle normative questions. Another type, found in Locke’s argument about monetary durability, takes teleological considerations to contribute to the settling of normative questions, but sees them as one consideration among many. This paper endorses the type made by Locke while rejecting the type made by Aristotle, and identifies further teleological tendencies in the work of Adam Smith and other philosophers.

On the Inflation-Debt-Bubble “Vicious Cycle” in Times of Evolving Money—A Memorandum of Forward-Looking Lessons

“…Certainly, wealth cannot be created with the stroke of a pen nor can central and commercial banks simply generate "assets" to discharge real-term obligations ad libitum (Helliwell 1973). Despite there still being no univocal consensus on how to define "money" (Dick 2021;Fand 1970), banking systems record it as a liability precisely because of representing nothing more than a spontaneous, not redeemable "acknowledgement of debt" (Cencini 2016). If fiat money has to be "backed" by real values-hence, present or future GDP-to acquire a positive purchasing power for the macroeconomy in its entirety (and not only for the microeconomic agents having the right to create it), over-issuing it systematically does not represent a convincing solution.…”