摘要：St. Paul (1 Timothy 6-10) famously said,
“For the love of money is the root of all
evil …. ” This is extremely dubious. But
as far as economic analysis goes, money
is the root of much confusion. The easiest
way to see this is to get to the essence of
an economic phenomenon. In such cases,
we ask if the phenomena would/could
exist in a barter economy. If so, then
money cannot be of the essence of the
matter. More important, any definition of
the phenomena that involves money is,
obviously, inadequate, in that, at best, it
is misleading, but usually confusing,
thereby causing faulty analysis. For ex-
ample, untold time and ink has been
squandered developing the theory, and
empirical estimates, of “the” demand for
money. However, correct analysis con-
cludes that there is no such thing. Money
qua money is one side of every monetary
transaction. Therefore, in the market in
which X trades for dollars, the price of
money is in terms of X/$. Of course, in
the market in which Y trades for dollars,
the price of money is in terms of Y/$.
There is then no “the” demand for mon-
ey. Rather, in every market in which
some good trades for money there is a
demand for money; i.e., there are de-
mands for money, not a demand for mon-
ey. Of course, the foregoing comments
apply equally to “the” supply of money.
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