Weiss’s theoretical article situates money within the general subjective theory of value. Its four sections move from value theory to money’s exchange and measurement functions, then to the claims of the state theory of money. The governing distinction is between explaining money’s purchasing power and describing the conventions through which values and obligations are expressed. Neither metallic substance nor sovereign command alone supplies an adequate explanation.
The opening discussion defends established terminology while demanding conceptual precision:
Oft wäre eine neue Terminologie aus inneren Gründen vorzuziehen, und man wird doch bei der alten bleiben, um für dieses kleine Opfer an Intellekt den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch als mächtigen Bundesgenossen auf seine Seite zu bekommen.
English translation: Often a new terminology would be preferable on intrinsic grounds, and yet one will keep to the old one, in order, at the price of this small sacrifice of intellect, to win over general linguistic usage as a powerful ally on one's side.
This concession to usage does not relax the requirement to distinguish utility, subjective importance, and exchange value. Weiss grounds subjective valuation in the satisfaction dependent upon possessing a good:
Die Bedeutung, der subjektive Wert eines Gutes ist also der von diesem Gute abhängige Nutzen.
English translation: The significance, the subjective value of a good, is therefore the utility that depends upon that good.
Marginal utility, labor’s disutility, and replacement costs belong within this framework. The point is to establish continuity between money and other goods without conflating money’s usefulness as an intermediary with its role as a measure.
The second section develops the exchange function through Menger’s account of unequal marketability. The problem is not whether a commodity can find a buyer at any price, but whether it can be exchanged readily on advantageous terms:
Jede Ware ist ja in praktisch unbegrenzten Mengen absatzfähig, wenn ihr Preis nur niedrig genug angesetzt ist.
English translation: Every commodity is indeed saleable in practically unlimited quantities, provided only that its price is set low enough.
Money’s distinctive usefulness extends beyond overcoming the difficulties of barter to lending, repayment, and other transfers. Weiss accordingly challenges Schumpeter’s derivation of a general medium through indirect exchange at fixed exchange ratios: arbitrage does not by itself explain universal acceptance or the continuing advantages of monetary mediation.
Functional usefulness permits marginal-utility analysis even where the monetary material lacks an independent use. Weiss distinguishes money’s historical emergence from the grounds of its current value. An initially marketable commodity can provide the starting point, while established circulation can sustain inconvertible paper and bank transfers after redemption ceases. Full-bodied metallic money, by contrast, derives value from both monetary and nonmonetary uses.
In explaining monetary changes, Weiss emphasizes individual receipts rather than the currency stock alone. Additional money affects prices through altered receipts and valuations; credit and circulation complicate simple quantity comparisons. He accepts quantity as an influence without treating proportional changes in all prices as established. He also acknowledges the incomplete treatment of initial capital-market effects and distinguishes foreign exchange movements, requiring consideration of the balance of payments, from domestic purchasing power.
The third section limits what monetary measurement can establish. Ranking satisfactions does not demonstrate that their numerical ratios are knowable. Nor does willingness to pay provide a fixed cardinal utility scale, since the marginal significance of money changes with its quantity. This objection informs Weiss’s criticisms of Schumpeter’s utility units, Wieser’s valuation of a stock through its marginal unit, and Marshall’s consumer-surplus calculation. Valuations formed under different conditions cannot simply be added while assuming an unchanged measuring standard.
Practical measurement nevertheless remains indispensable. Weiss favors expenditure-weighted price indices grounded in social-class budgets and subsequently aggregated. His preferred comparison prices the latest period’s consumption quantities at earlier prices. Such indices register changes in purchasing power, not their causes, and cannot isolate changes originating on the monetary side. They concern average individual valuations rather than a value attributed to society as a single subject.
The final section applies this separation of economic explanation from formal representation to Knapp’s state theory. The state can determine what discharges a nominal debt, but that authority does not explain the purchasing power of the means of payment. Legal acceptance can support circulation without preventing excessive issuance from reducing exchange value. Weiss’s criticism therefore does not entail a return to metallic money. His central contribution is to combine a functional, marginalist explanation of monetary value with stringent limits on utility measurement and on the explanatory reach of legal nominalism.
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