ABSTRACT
Money was not born of the necessities of market exchange, according to Polanyi. The prejudice of the “catallactic triad”, which necessarily associates foreign trade, money and markets, has no basis. This fruitful hypothesis reconciles history and logic. Mobilizing anthropological and historical materials from a comparative perspective, Polanyi demonstrates that money is an important institution of most societies, also regarding the construction of social status and the state. As to the market society, Polanyi demonstrates that money, even if fictitiously transformed into a commodity, is an institution that performs fundamental economic, political and symbolic functions.
