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Tensions in the triangle: monetary plurality between institutional integration, competition and complementarity

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Abstract

This text aims at accounting for the plurality of money by emphasizing the delicate and evolving balance of the legal monetary systems and the continued existence of moneys that stay outside, though their continuation is subjected to chronic difficulties. It uses Polanyian concepts to take the wide and increasing variety of money into account and mobilizes criteria able to analyse the variety of links between them. It proposes a framework based on the representation of a “plurality triangle” with institutional integration, complementarity and competition, and it analyses the positioning of moneys in this framework as well as tensions that may generate shifts in their positioning.

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Notes

  1. In this text, ‘modern money’ shall mean money in modern societies, that is, societies where a market principle of circulation of wealth dominates, as opposed to ‘exotic societies’, meaning ancient, archaic or primitive societies.

  2. Fungibility appears as an element for defining money within a substantive approach: Polanyi characterizes the quantifiable objects that constitute money as ‘fungibles’ (Polanyi, 1977, p. 102). For primitive and archaic societies, it must be understood that this consubstantial fungibility of money is confined to a given class of quantifiable objects whose uses are compartmentalized and are not all purpose.

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  1. Univ. de Lyon, Sciences Po Lyon, TRIANGLE, UMR, 5206 CNRS, Lyon, France

    Jérôme Blanc

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  1. Jérôme Blanc
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Correspondence to Jérôme Blanc.

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This paper draws on earlier work on the plurality of money (notably Blanc, 2000, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018). It notably follows the paper published in Gómez (2018) and intends to provide an evolutionary conception of monetary plurality. I am grateful to many commentators who helped me improve these attempts.

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Blanc, J. Tensions in the triangle: monetary plurality between institutional integration, competition and complementarity. Evolut Inst Econ Rev 15, 389–411 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-018-0101-1

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