The Duel Nature of Money

In conversations about money it is most often referred to as a unit, thereby excluding its two sided nature But in any trade there are two givers and two receivers. Each one will have an account and each account will have a list of liabilities opposite a list of assets. Each of those two lists refers to the representative value, plus or minus, debit or credit, of the same unit.

An understanding of the nature of money should be allowed to bear on any honest, serious and fair debate about its production and distribution. We maintain that currency is not wealth. Common currency is not labled in the mind of its owner as committed for consumption. It is therefore not life sustaining.

In some cases traded things will be immediately consumed by the traders. As for instance in the purchase of a hot dog and a soda which will be consumed expeditiously in exchange for some common currency which will not be demised by the trader but will instead be further traded.

The major difference between types of trade is the magnitude of social, political, and environmental impact.

That two-faced unit of currency travels from trade to trade. It is common to more than one trade. We therefore call it very sensibly, our common currency. This distinguishes it from a great many things which are traded in exchange for those units, such things which are also currencies; currencies of the owners; things like shoes, cars, a class in public speaking, new windows for the church.etc.

It is certainly appropriate to call anything that someone trades in order to gain, his currency. Anything that fulfills the function of currency is currency.

So in reality it can be said that every trade is a currency exchange. It is just that we are accustomed to calling the common currency the only currency. And that’s ok. But in order to be fair in discussions about distribution and application we should keep in mind the the fact that commitments are what is exchanged.