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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ONTOLOGY OF MONEYThe ontology of money has been a fertile field for the application and the appraisal of philosophical theories of social existence; many social philosophers including Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber have developed elaborate theories about the emergence of money and its acceptance in economic transactions. More recently, the ontology of money has been an important question in the debate on the usefulness (or not) of "collective intentionality" (Gilbert 1989; Searle 1995), and further, has been used an illustration for the usefulness of the notion in the analysis of social existence (Hedoin 2013; Maki 2005; Searle 1995, 2005, 2010; Smit, et al. 2011; Tieffenbach 2010). The aim of the paper is twofold:1. To contribute to the debate about collective intentionality by illustrating the explanatory merit of the notion for the social existence of money. This identifies money in the context of the current system of fiat money where its value is not intrinsic (or "hylic") and the state serves an important function as the ultimate guarantor of monetary value (Knapp 1924, 4). The proposed ontological account of money will update the state theory following the recent developments in social ontology.2. To develop an account of collective intentionality built upon the notion of "sharedness"1 in order to propose an ontological framework for the state theory of money, explaining the preconditions for the social constitution and the mechanism of the collective acceptance of fiat money.2The state theory argues that money is essentially created by the state, where currency is enacted by declaration independently of the inherent value of the objects used to represent currency. The state's reliance upon money and its fiduciary nature is consistent with its current monetary regime; non-convertible currency that is issued by the central bank-a state institution that may or may not be independent of the government-is intrinsically worthless. The central bank infuses the system with trust because it guarantees both the acceptability of money and the security of deposits by assuming the function of lender of last resort. According to the state theory, money falls back upon the rule of law, the system of taxation, and the ability of the state to enforce laws and taxation.The appeal to state authority provides only a provisional explanation for the existence of money, i.e., for its instantiation in objects and practices. An analysis of the ontology of intrinsically worthless and non-convertible money enacted by state authority should also provide an account of how this authority came to exist, and how it relates to the action and the attitudes of the individuals it regulates. Social ontology can provide the basis for the study of fiat money delineating a form of collective acceptance that is both able to carry the weight of fiat money and is consistent with a wider framework of analysis of social institutions,3 including the state. An account of collective intentionality that is based on the sharedness of collective intentional states-of which cannot be reduced to an aggregate of individual intentional states-can support both the existence of fiat money as well as the state that sanctions it. Here, collective intentionality is supplemented by the concept of "constitutive declaration" 4 which, I argue, can resolve questions that concern the ontological foundation of the state theory of money-viz. where its institutional status as legal tender (not its value as a commodity) allows for its function.In what follows, I elaborate the concepts of collective intentionality and constitutive declarations, highlighting their importance for the existence of social facts and for fiat money in particular. The analysis focuses on the relational character of collective intentionality, and on the explanatory advantage it provides over weaker notions of collective acceptance that are associated with methodological individualism (Meijers 2003; Schmid 2003). … |
