Abstract

This article aims at demonstrating the institutional character of money and at
examining the necessary conditions to preserve it as a social operator. Money is a social institution
because it is central to the maintenance of social practices necessary for the creation
of productive wealth and therefore for the material reproduction of modem capitalist economies.
Moreover, as the productive circuit is one of the spheres of those economies in which
private “passions” and social “interests” can be reconciled, money is presented as an element
of social cohesion. It is argued, however, that only if trust in the maintenance of the “unity
of the functions of money” endures can money be preserved as a social institution. Trust, in
sum, is shown to emerge from a cognitive process embedded in specific cultural patterns,
whereby information is generated, passed on and reinforced, gradually engendering habits
and conventions to be followed by economic agents.

JEL Classification: E41; E42; B52.