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Even beyond that, there's an argument to be made that money (and debt) are at their core quantified and malleable representations of social relations.



> representations of social relations

What Nick Szabo would call reciprocity, or the delay thereof.

https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/


Isn't that stretching "social"? The money I hold is not tied to the yet unknown individual or group with with whom I will exchange it for goods or services, the person might not even be born yet.


The money one holds always has ties to the people surrounding its owner, no matter if those people are known, unknown, born or unborn (I honestly didn't understand the thing about the unborn people, as we as a society do lots of societal stuff for the people not yet born), and in that regards money is indeed one of the most social/societal things ever. As a matter of fact sociology itself as a science was partly born as a result of Georg Simmel's book called "The Philosophy of Money" [1], published more than 100 years ago.

> Probably considered Simmel's greatest work, Simmel saw money as a structuring agent that helps us understand the totality of life.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Money


The reason the unknown individual or group will choose to accept it is very much tied to their social and legal relations with other people.


I'm willing to bet a US dollar that at least some of the money you hold is tied to some national group, a government.


Well try to imagine there are no people around in 5 years, only you. Or that your country becomes North Korea. Or that the "yet unborn" generation, for some mysterious reason, completely rejects money. What good is your money.




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