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• Publications of Agustí Chalaux. Life, work and thought.
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Books and documents:

A short history of money.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà, Brauli Tamarit Tamarit.

Communal Capitalism.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà.

An instrument to build peace.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà.

Semitic legends concerning the bank.
Agustí Chalaux de Subirà.

Telematic currency and market strategy.
Magdalena Grau, Agustí Chalaux.

The power of money.
Martí Olivella.
Introduction. Telematic currency and market strategy. Index. Telematic currency and market strategy. Chapter 2. Money systems: their elements, nature and functions. Telematic currency and market strategy.

A. Money systems until now.

Chapter 1. Limiting the matter being studied.

  1. Goals and method of this chapter.
  2. Historical context.
  3. Geo-political context.
  4. Conclusions.

1. Goals and method of this chapter.

The critical consideration on the money systems is the core of this essay. But before starting we want to use this chapter to situate the money systems within the global context where they will be studied and to fix exactly their limits.

This job will help also to give the definitions of the main technical wording which will be used in this essay. The more specialized terms will be defined every time it becomes necessary.

2. Historical context.

Money systems appear under given historical conditions which we should remember. Therefore, they must be considered as the results of a lasting evolution, or better still, of a utilitarian evolution of mankind. All living beings, among them man, need a number of commodities in order to develop and better work out their existential process. These commodities will be indicated as utilitarian commodities, so as to show that they are useful to satisfy the material needs of human beings. As a definition, all utilitarian commodities have a market value which is subjective, that is depending from the subject who is their user.

The word utilitarianism will indicate any production and distribution system of utilitarian commodities within every community under consideration.

In historic times, several sorts of utilitarianism have followed each other in mankind, which we will describe shortly.

  • 1. Pre-exchange utilitarianism: it is the most primitive utilitarian system, and is determined by the fact that the production of utilitarian goods by the human group under consideration is fully distributed within the group itself, without any exchange, only a redistribution. The producer subject -who usually is not one individual, but rather all the community- is the end-user of the goods.
  • 2. Exchange utilitarianism: from a given point of historical development, human communities exchange the utilitarian goods produced, both within themselves and with other communities. Therefore the goods obtain a new value: the exchange value, which is subjective twice, because it depends from the subjective evaluation of the two exchange agents. As a synonym of «exchange utilitarianism» we will use the word market, and as a synonym of «exchange utilitarian goods» we will currently say «goods» or «merchandise».
    • 2.1. Pre-currency exchange utilitarianism or non-money market:in the first place, exchange of goods is effected intuitively, according to the needs of the exchange agents, but without any reference to any objective model of the exchange value, that is without any reference to any sort of money units.
    • 2.2. Money exchange utilitarianism or money market: starting from a given historical moment -which probably we can locate at the beginning of what is called «neolithic transformation»- exchange of goods is effected according to some regulating conventions or standards of the exchange value of the goods, which we will call money units. The reference to a value standard finally transforms exchange into an objective act.

The conclusions to this might therefore be the following:

  • First: We will consider that money systems appear in a context of a well advanced goods exchange (probably neolithic).
  • Second: We will define money systems as instruments whose goal is to objectivize the exchange value of the goods. Therefore, we will consider that money units, as objective models to measure value, are the basic element that defines any money system.

3. Geo-political context.

After establishing the utilitarian-historical background to place the goal of this study, we must now consider its present conditions. We will therefore speak about the geo-political context, a frame where all money systems are developed.

At present, the words «state» and «nation» are currently used to indicate geo-strategically organized societies. However, if we analyze the etymological roots of the two words, it appears that not only their use is questionable, but that it is even completely inappropriate.

State is only a small part of the total collectivity: that where customary or written constitution has delegated political power.

Nation simply means, according to Latin etymology, «birth group, group where people are born». A nation is a natural fact, common to men and animals, which has nothing to do with political organization, which is not only specifically human, but also appears at a much later date, and is of a completely different vital order.

Instead of these words we will use the much more exact one of geo-political society, defined as a collective being, fixed by history on a given territory, which evolves according to the changing strategic and technical circumstances, and which is provided with political ruling organs (State, in historically more advanced societies) and judicial organs (Justice).

Any market is included within a given geo-political society, or is developed among several geo-political societies.

In any geo-political society we can separate, analytically, the utilitarian dimension and therefore talk about a utilitarian society. In this utilitarian society we can recognize two groups.

  1. The producing utilitarian society is a part (proportionally more or less important, according to the degree of utilitarian and cultural development of every society) which has specialized, along thousands of years, in producing utilitarian goods.
  2. The consumers' utilitarian society includes all the members of society, as without utilitarian goods nobody can survive.

When we find ourselves in front of an exchange utilitarianism we can define utilitarian society as a market; and when in a market money units are introduced, we will then talk about money market1.

This money market -as a society specialized in the production and consumption of utilitarian goods, using a money system- will be the social and political context of money systems.

The domestic market, which is developed within a geo-political society, is extended, in the world context of geo-political societies by the so-called foreign trade. This can be bilateral or multilateral, according to a more or less uncertain modus vivendi or more permanent treaties.

On the domestic market rush the forces and conditionings of all legitimate authorities which have jurisdiction on it: Constitution, law, State, Justice, autonomous ethnic-territorial communities,... trade unions,... and finally the firms.

In foreign trade these influences come from the shared jurisdiction of the two or more parties to the contract.

4. Conclusions.

In this essay we will study the role that the money systems have had historically within the exchange utilitarianisms which have followed each other, and in present day within the domestic market and foreign trade of every geo-political society.

Note:

1We must clearly state that we call money market a market with at least one fully defined money unit. This meaning has nothing to do with today's meaning, and we will use it as a technical word only and exactly as defined herewith.

Introduction. Telematic currency and market strategy. Index. Telematic currency and market strategy. Chapter 2. Money systems: their elements, nature and functions. Telematic currency and market strategy.

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