Contenu du sommaire : Monnaie métallique et monnaie bancaire

There is no agreement between economists about the definition of money. The authors indicate the necessity of a transhistoricai definition of the concept of Money. A relevant definition must take account of the wide range of monetary practices and forms which can be observed through time and space. The only two functions of money are account and payment ; the store function is not a specific one. In our societies, monetary dynamics rely on a game between State's power and market practices. With metal, Money, embeded in a fixed price coin, first has a political feature ; with credit, merchants tend to create payment and account instruments requiring authorities'final ratification to get close to Money.

In a monetary economy, where the unit of account is unique, a monetary regime may be defined as a set of coordinated official rules of account and payment, which private agents must observe in their relations. When applied to a metallic monetary regime, this definition allows to recognize the influence of foreign exchange on domestic monetary relations. As early as the XVIth century in Europe, metallic and bank mintages are articulated through specific institutional arrangements ; including public rules, banking behaviors and organized market procedures, they determine the stability or instability of domestic and international relations. This fact invites to a comparison with our modern European Monetary System.

In 1705, John Law sends « Money and Trade » to the Scottish Parliament. According to him, only a transformation of the monetary system can resolve the Scottish crisis. He starts to ask for metallic coins demonetization. Then, he suggests the issue of paper money take shape of loan of mortgage. So, the capital-land is an instrument of selection. Besides, the landowners diffuse money in the form of wages. In that way, the salariat is necessary. The money takes a circular course and disappears when it comes back to the issuing. Crisis consists in a interruption of the monetary circuit. « Financement » resolves it.

The interpretation of the sign theory of money which Michel Foucault based on a theory of representation is contested in favor of an interpretation which instead emphasizes both the notion of universal exchange and the notion of convention. This sign theory of money is illustrated by Montesquieu's thesis about money, a thesis which can be usefully contrasted with Turgot's commodity theory of money. It will be suggested that the attraction exerted by these two theories in the XVIIIth century anticipated, to some extent at least, the respective preferences for impersonal mechanisms and for discretionary power which, since that time, have become central in the debates about monetary policy. However, these theories are now almost forgotten, having been replaced by theories which put more emphasis on the social aspects of the theory of money.

Today economists, by qualifying a kind of money as sign, would only mean to suggest that it is not so real as goods. But, as M. Foucault underlined it in Les mots et les choses, something more important was at stake for some authors of the 18 th century. Montesquieu and Turgot had different theories of sign, which conveyed opposite conceptions of money, and which led to alternative approaches of the object of political economy.

Four contributions are presented to the debate around this book. Bernard Courbis discusses the private mintage of the merchant-bankers, advocated in the book, from the point of view of the two functions of money. The function of account leads to underline the specifically monetary role of the unit of account of the Prince (nominalism). The function of payment allows to show that the bill of exchange is more an instrument of credit than a means of payment. Daniel Diatkine asks a question about the merchant-banker's systematic enrichment. Must it be attributed to the fact that the merchant-banker had an access to general equivalent or to the fact that he had access to the liquidity par excellence ? According to Eric Froment, the right understanding of modern money needs to give more developments to the phenomenon of credit and less to the one of change. Marie-Thérèse Boyer-Xambeu, Ghislain Deleplace and Lucien Gillard analyse the criticisms and suggestions made in the three papers above and in the other comments yet published ; they try to make more precise some facts presented and concepts used in the book, in the light of their paper Towards a typology of monetary regimes published in this issue of the Cahiers.

In his short and unfinished article « Valeurs et Monnaies » (1769 ?) Turgot outlined a theory of value based on subjective foundations. First of all I critically examine Tur- got's propositions. In this way I demonstrate that one of his fundamental ideas, viz. that the gain of exchange has to be the same of the buyer and for the seller, cannot be hold. More in general, the road taken by Turgot hardly appears to be promising. In the second place I try to find out to what extent Turgot's propositions can be regarded as an anticipation of the neoclassical theory of value. I show that it is possible to reformulate Turgot's theory in neoclassical terms. What separates Turgot from the neoclassical tradition, however, is the absence of the principle of utility maximization.