An Analysis of Existential Approaches to "Money" Based on The Views of Allamah Tabatabai and Simmel

The issue of the "nature of money" has always been a source of controversy among scientists. The position adopted in this area has significant implications for the design of a desirable monetary system and macroeconomic policies. This paper, by means of descriptive-analytic method, has collected the common definitions of money and after extracting the rational order between them has drawn the semantic system of money and proved the necessity of paying attention to the existence of money. Then, two realistic and idealist approaches are analyzed as two existential approaches to money. In the idealist school, and in particular from Simmel's point of view, the initial emergence of money coincides with the creation of a subjective value and a relative instrument, but it evolves and becomes an absolute value. In the school of realism, and in particular from the point of view of Allamah Tabatabai, the basic credit identity of money signifies its being temporary, variable, relative, and unnecessary, but with a change of credit, it gains some semblance of truth, which indicates sustainability, stability, relevance and necessity. Finally, an explanation of the creation of money based on the existence of money is presented to illustrate the higher capacity of existential approach in comparison to the two conventional theories of commodity money and credit money.