The Future of Money

ion concerns definition of the unit of measurement. These definitions are increasingly abstract, meaning that they are increasingly consistent with the essential characteristic of money, which is to be the pure form of exchange. This characteristic is expressed in a number associated with exchange: the economic value assigned to the objects of exchange, i.e, their price. Money is the operator which confers an exchange value tp. It is therefore logical that the path taken through history by definitions of the unit of account should culminate in selfdefinition. The unit of account is instituted by the sign which represents it, the mark of the issuing body. But to define does not mean to preserve. If the unit of account is to be preserved, it must be generally accepted in the interconnection of payment instruments within a payment system. However, these systems are shot through with tensions deriving from the ambivalence of money: the system must establish the coherence of exchanges, but payment instruments are created by the separate and contradictory acts of private agents. The centralisation of payments is the process that results from the dual aspect of money. Once bank money develops, centralisation on the books of the institution issuing the unit of account is the only system that guarantees final settlement. Unlike the two previous tendencies, control is not in the least progressive. As we have seen from studying the path taken through history by units of account, there are times of deteriorating trust when the unit of account suffers, undermined by inflation, and times when agents believe firmly in the maintenance of nominal