ABSTRACT
What makes economic relations specific in comparison with social relations in general is that they are quantitative. In order to account for that specificity, value theoreticians discard the "appearances" – monetary magnitudes – for the "essence" – relative values as solutions of a system of equations. Rejecting any given a priori commodity space and adopting money as the expression for economic magnitudes leads to a defining of economic relations as monetary ones. The very basis of money mediation is the nominal monetary unit, conceptually distinct from commodities even if it may be related in some cases to precious metals. In decentralized economies the monetary unit is the normal way by which individuals express their commitments. Economists used to explain individual behaviour by way of diverse hypotheses: rationality, limited rationality, etc. In a monetary analysis no subjective considerations are in order, not for the sake of realism but because they are out of place.
