THE FUTURE OF MONEY Bernard A. Lietaer - library.uniteddiversity ...

Less obvious is the mechanism of the interest, which will be shown to
foster competition among users of the currency.
A 'simple' question
The best-known economist of the 20th century, John Maynard
Keynes, must have understood money. He was, after all, the
chairman of the team who designed our current monetary system,
known as the Bretton Woods Agreement. Marcel Labordere, a French
financial journalist, postulated in a letter to Keynes: 'It is self-evident
that man will never be able to know what money is no more than he
will be able to know what God is in the spiritual world. Money is not
the infinite, but the indefinite, an astounding complex of all sorts of
psychological as well as material reactions.'
Keynes's answer to Labordere was not preserved, but we can
deduce his opinion on the topic from his quip: 'I know of only three
people who really understand money. A professor at another
university; one of my students; and a rather junior clerk at the Bank
of England.' A prudent man, he didn't name them. What Keynes is
saying is that you can go right to the top of the hierarchy of experts
and still not find an answer to the deceptively simple question, 'What
is money?'
Where is the money mystery coming from?
The representative of the Clinton administration to the IMF offered
this revealing definition: 'Money is magic. Central bankers are
magicians. Like all magicians, they don't like to show their tricks.'
Was she referring to the real magic or simple parlor tricks? The
answer is both. Magic and mystery have surrounded the money
process during its entire evolution. There are two main reasons why
money appears so mysterious: