Money: Difference between revisions

[[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''.