ABSTRACT
A democratic government wished to put the aristocrats in their place by using something they valued, precious metal, for a mundane purpose. The tradition continued, though sometimes combined with 'nominalism' - the setting of the price of coins above that of the metal they contained. One may wonder why any government should have chosen an expensive medium for its IOUs if their value was anyway guaranteed by the capacity to settle contrary debts. Debt is a liability, and in accounting terms the only thing that can match a liability on one side of a balance sheet is an asset on the other. Regarding all money as IOUs, with government IOUs possessing a special status because of the government's special power to create opposing tax debts, helps to explain why it is not only the government that can issue units that play the typical roles of money.
