Social Omniequivalence
The money I have in my wallet consists in paper notes, or bank notes. Those notes have a monetary value, which belongs to me. However, the notes themselves do not belong to me (I have no right to destroy them). They are public: they belong to society. While their monetary value is private: it belongs to me, or to whoever controls its representing notes.
Any such notes represent money. This money they represent is their own identity to the exchange value of any commodity. Social omniequivalence is precisely that represented identity.
Social omniequivalence is the ultimate concept of money. Only with that concept we can fully understand fractional-reserve—commercial—and central banking. Commercial and central (respectively private and public) banking are the modern forms of debt monetization—the process by which money becomes debt. They are the causes of modern inflation, “booms” and “busts”, deflation, and monetary crises.
Individual and Social Omniequivalence
Omniequivalence is the equivalence of an object to all commodities. That equivalence can either be social (money) or individual. Recognizing money to be just social (as opposed to individual) omniequivalence is beginning to learn that:
No single object necessarily represents money.
Not all money constitutes debt.1
All debt monetization (including private and public banking2) results from confusing an actual monetary value (monetary identity) with its representing object.
That confusion between the identity of money and its representation is a representational monetary identity.
Multiequivalence
Whether individual or social, omniequivalence has a general and a generic aspect. In its general aspect, it is the same as multiequivalence. Finally, understanding omniequivalence as generic (or multiequivalence as omniequivalence) requires understanding omnistitution.
- If A has an ounce of gold and a pair of shoes worth two ounces of gold and B has two ounces of gold and a knife worth an ounce of gold, A can give B a pair of shoes while B gives A a knife and an ounce of gold. In this example, A and B always own three ounces of gold each, in both monetary (golden) and commodity form, and never owe each other anything. [↩]
- Since banking is always private, public banking requires the privatization of public interests. [↩]