Money: Difference between revisions
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No-one has a better claim over a unit of money that the one who, [[for the time being]] holds it. | No-one has a better claim over a unit of money that the one who, [[for the time being]] holds it. | ||
[[Cash]] requires your total commitment, or nothing: you can’t futz around with it, you can’t declare a [[trust]] over it<ref>You can declare a [[trust]] over an account that ''holds'' cash, of course: a subtly, but significantly, different thing.</ref>, [[pledge]] it, or hold it for anyone other than yourself. If you could, this would undermine the practical value of money ''as'' money: a £5 note, to be meaningful, must be a token worth exactly £5. A [[bank note]] has no intrinsic value — it’s a scruffy bit of paper. If its | [[Cash]] requires your total commitment, or nothing: you can’t futz around with it, you can’t declare a [[trust]] over it<ref>You can declare a [[trust]] over an account that ''holds'' cash, of course: a subtly, but significantly, different thing.</ref>, [[pledge]] it, or hold it for anyone other than yourself. If you could, this would undermine the practical value of money ''as'' money: a £5 note, to be meaningful, must be a token worth exactly £5. A [[bank note]] has no intrinsic value — it’s a scruffy bit of paper. If its [[nominal value|''nominal'' value]] is £5 but you fear that the person giving it to you may not own it — that is, may not have the ''unalienable legal right to give that piece of paper to you''; that there is a risk that some random may snatch it from your hands after you have given up your own precious goods in exchange for it, alleging some prior, superior, ownership right — ''then it does not have a value of £5 any more''. | ||
It is ''really'' important to the economy that banknotes have the value they say they do. So, cash is a special thing. It has special [[Metaphysics|metaphysical]] properties — or more to the point, it ''lacks'' certain metaphysical properties possessed by ordinary [[chattel]]s. | |||
===''Holding'' cash is different from putting it in a [[bank account]]=== | ===''Holding'' cash is different from putting it in a [[bank account]]=== | ||
It follows from the above that if you put ''your'' [[money]] in ''your'' [[bank account]], it isn’t ''your'' [[money]] any more. It is the [[bank]]’s. | It follows from the above that if you put ''your'' [[money]] in ''your'' [[bank account]], it isn’t ''your'' [[money]] any more. It is the [[bank]]’s. | ||