ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with money as a special form of private property and with the impact of this strategic institution on employment and output in the economy as a whole. There is an old saying that everyone knows what money is except economists. When economists rush to their dictionaries, they find references to medium of exchange, unit of account, and measure of value. To analyze money as an institution of capitalism presupposes a clear picture of the salient features of the capitalist system. A monetary theory of production is one in which money plays a central and indispensable role in explaining the process of production. The well-known dichotomy between industrial and pecuniary employments, that is, between making goods and making money, runs as a central theme throughout the economic writings of Thorstein Veblen. Unemployment results from the application of business principles and concerns industry only because “industry is managed on a business footing”.
