ABSTRACT
A different and most revealing approach to understanding the social dimension of money is made possible by the Lacanian insight into the registers of human experience as structured by three orders: the Imaginary, the Real, and the Symbolic. The relevance of this approach to an enriched comprehension of money is great, as the Lacanian understanding of communication itself, the exchange of words, is as the most basic form of exchange—something that money also accomplishes by design. Understood as a signifier, money makes an ideal candidate for the position of agalma carrier, a holder of little intrinsic value that holds within a most precious offering, the object of desire. A triangular configuration is made possible through the assertion of the presence of the Father as symbolic function, rather than actual person. What is central to this match is money's ability to function as an unconscious equivalent of any object invested with desire, that is to say, to act as an agalma.
