Power, Institutions & Society · Axiologic Research Editions
Money Was Never One Thing
A History of Alternative Currencies and the Possible Future of Money as We Know It
A historically grounded exploration of money as a designed social institution, with tools for assessing when plural currencies expand freedom and when they merely relocate power.
The myth of one money
Money has long been a layered arrangement of credit, commodities, public authority, private promises, accounting, and trust. The book recovers that plurality before asking what has been gained—and hidden—by modern monetary singleness.
A grammar for monetary design
Alternative currencies are not one policy. Their unit, issuer, redemption, circulation, governance, and relation to taxes and debt determine whether they create useful coordination, exclusion, instability, or new dependencies.
Money is not a thing found in the world. It is an agreement whose architecture decides who can act.
Experiments with boundaries
Historical experiments, mutual credit, local systems, cryptocurrencies, and programmable money become cases for institutional judgment rather than slogans for or against monetary innovation.