Towards the break-up of money: when reality - driven by information technology - overtakes Simmel’s vision.

Résumé :

This article confronts Simmel’s hypothesis while affirming that money has undergone changes since the publication of his book, « The philosophy of money », notably since the 1970s.

The article begins by presenting the main results from the research by Simmel led on the essence of currency.

The second part of this article refers to the Simmel’s analysis on different aspects of contemporary reflection on currency, and presents the hypothesis « of the double anchor » of the monetary order.

Subsequently, this hypothesis will be used to analyze how processes guided by technology incite specific monetary functions to become more and more autonomous.

The expected end to currency poses restrictive problems that call for technical and institutional solutions.