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Public Law's Rationalization of the Legal Architecture of Money: What Might Legal Analysis of Money Become?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Abstract

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Many of the ills afflicting democratic capitalism have their source in the current legal architecture of money and finance. At the same time the reimagination of institutions of money and finance promise an avenue for reform to democratize the economy and prevent the perpetuation of austerity politics. Such institutional reimagination requires a perspective that recognizes money as an institution linking state and civil society, politics and the economy. Economics in great part eschews such a perspective and perceives of money as a medium of exchange largely independent of government and politics. Legal analysis, by contrast, should be ideally suited for the endeavor to analyse the various ways in which the institutional design of money configures political economy.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by German Law Journal, Inc. 

References

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134 See Mosler, supra note 16. To be sure, the legal architecture of money in the European Union currently does not allow an implementation of Lerner's theory of functional finance. Implementation would require a different institutional design.Google Scholar

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137 Spending can be financed either by borrowing or issuing money. According to Lerner, governments should only borrow if they hold it desirable that the public has less money and more government bonds (Lerner's 2nd law of functional finance). Id. at 40.Google Scholar

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