What Is Money?

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study the economic nature of money. The author notes that in a number of the most common monetary theories, the question of the nature of money is not even raised. The author shows that a number of modern theories of money are related to the nominalist theory, as well as to the concept of the credit nature of money. However, the nature of money in these concepts either does not receive a clear definition, or is based on an erroneous interpretation of facts. The author begins the answer to the question about the nature of money by analyzing the relations of commodity production underlying the origin of money. The author is based on the priority of the reproductive approach and believes that subjective psychological assessments of the usefulness of goods are not the basis of the proportions of exchange. Money is considered as a separate objective being of the objective property of value inherent in goods. Since capital in the modern economy is mainly in the form of fictitious capital, it is its turnover that acts as the basis for a credit issue that ensures monetary circulation. The regulated nature of credit relations marks the undermining of the properties of money as a product of the spontaneous movement of commodity production.