ABSTRACT
InVolume 3 ofCapital, Marx argues that a contradictory understanding ofmoney is endemic to capitalism. Obscuring the social origins of value in labour, the economic theorists of capital, with what Marx satirises as 'beautiful ... dualism', throw themselves alternately into the error of believing that the extension of credit can create value and into that ofbelieving that value is an intrinsic property oflegal tender:
As long as it claims to treat 'ofcapital; enlightened economics looks down on gold and silver with the utmost disdain, as the most indifferent and useless form of capital. As soon as it deals with banking, however, this is completely reversed, and gold and silver become capital par excellence, for whose preservation every other form of capital and labour have to be sacrificed. (Marx 1981: 707)
In our own time, with the passing of the gold standard and the progress oflate capitalism toward the monetisation of all values, Marx's beautiful dualism has become a pluralism. In calculating the money supply central banks now use several different figures, each including assets of different degrees of liquidity, depending on the purpose of the calculation.2
