[가상화폐 공부] - G. Ingham
[가상화폐 공부]
“we need to be clear about what exactly money is before embarking on an examination of the consequences of its new forms. Unfortunately, this question has proved to be surprisingly difficult to answer. Indeed, it will be argued in this chapter that almost all of the recently fashionable conjectures on e-money and “the end of money”, or the existence of “virtual money”, are based upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of money. It is usual to define money in terms of its functions of medium of exchange; means of payment (settlement); money of account; store of value. Orthodox economic theory implies that medium of exchange is the most important function, and that the others simply follow from it. Nearly all of the recent analyses of e-money and its consequences are guided by these assumptions, but it is here argued that they are mistaken. There is a tendency to confuse specific forms of money – metal, paper, electronic impulses, etc. – with the generic properties of money as measure and bearer of abstract value. As expressed in the opening lines of Keynes’s A Treatise on Money: “Money-of-account, namely that in which debts and prices and general purchasing power are expressed, is the primary concept in a theory of money” (Keynes). These qualities are generated by the social relation between the issuer and the user. Monetary spaces are created by social and political relations that exist independently of the exchanges between transacting economic agents. The form of money and its mode of transmission are of secondary importance.”
( G. Ingham, in Future of Money, OECD, 2002, pp. 124-5 ).
aglietta.pdf