ABSTRACT
In contemporary debates on what to do about financialization, the closest equivalent to a populist rallying cry is the call for monetary reform. Money has served as a stable safe haven and monetary policy has contributed to macroeconomic stabilization in a period of turmoil. The credit theory of money allows a richer understanding of the monetary and financial system than most explanations rooted in a commodity view of money. The key idea is that through the assets that serve as counterparts to money creation, additional economic activity can be financed. Whereas “Modern Monetary Theory” and Regional Currency both build on credit theories of money, they differ on the appropriate mechanism to govern the issuing of money. There may be some differences in opinion about potential debtors’ creditworthiness, but if money issuers’ assessments about the quality of assets behind money depart too much from the assessments of currency users, currency users may start to doubt the quality of the currency.
