Karel Engliš’s German-language study, published in 1920, develops a theory of money through a critical engagement with Robert Liefmann’s Geld und Gold. Its argument moves from an exposition of Liefmann’s system to criticism of its methodological and monetary foundations and a systematic statement of Engliš’s alternative. Monetary phenomena must be explained through the purposes and relations constituting economic activity:
Das Geld steht im Mittelpunkt aller wirtschaftlichen Erscheinungen; die Theorie des Geldes ist daher nur im Rahmen und auf Grund einer allgemeinen Wirtschaftstheorie zu machen.
English translation: Money stands at the center of all economic phenomena; the theory of money is therefore to be constructed only within the framework of, and on the basis of, a general theory of the economy.
Engliš accepts the importance of individual needs in explaining exchange but rejects the identification of economic activity with psychological comparisons of pleasure and displeasure. Economic inquiry treats external objects and changes as intended means to ends. Its explanatory standpoint is teleological: it connects what economic agents want with the means through which they seek to diminish suffering. This differs both from causal explanation in natural science and from normative judgments about what ought to occur. It also qualifies subjective value theory, since an object’s significance depends on its anticipated use or alteration rather than a valuation transferable unchanged between situations.
The methodological dispute becomes concrete in the analysis of calculation. Subjective benefits and sacrifices require an external denominator if they are to be compared economically. Time, weight, or other technical units can supply such a denominator; money generalizes it across different goods and activities.
Dann ist die wesentliche Funktion des Geldes, allgemeines Rechnungsmittel, Kosteneinheit zu sein.
English translation: Then the essential function of money is to be a general means of reckoning, a cost unit.
This function requires distinguishing the acquisition of income from its expenditure. Consumption distributes money according to the relative utility obtained per monetary unit, whereas earning seeks monetary units at the lowest subjective cost. Spending is not another psychological sacrifice added to the effort already incurred in acquisition. Engliš therefore differentiates the marginal principles governing consumption and earning instead of treating them as one undivided calculation of returns. At the limit of acquisition, the benefit obtainable from an additional monetary unit compensates the cost of earning it.
A mathematical construction involving two persons and two goods explores the determination of production, consumption, prices, and incomes under freedom of consumption and production. Unequal ownership limits this freedom in practice, but the simplified construction makes underlying relations intelligible. It separates relative prices, connected with goods’ desirability and production difficulty, from the absolute price level. Given production and exchange relations, aggregate money income determines the latter: a proportional increase in incomes raises prices without necessarily altering their proportions.
Yet money’s role as a unit of calculation does not fully explain its economic content. Engliš distinguishes a good’s direct usefulness from the usefulness accessible through exchange. Money is an indirect, abstract good because it provides access to goods generally rather than serving one concrete use. A coin employed as material or ornament is not functioning as money in that employment.
Als Kostengut der Konsumwirtschaften leitet das Geld seinen »Wert« von dem der Genußgüter ab, zu deren Beschaffung es dient.
English translation: As a cost good of consumption economies, money derives its "value" from that of the enjoyment goods for the procurement of which it serves.
The consumption relation supports Engliš’s defense of objective purchasing power. What money can procure must be distinguished from the subjective satisfaction its expenditure produces. Purchasing opportunities can differ among individuals without becoming identical to their psychological valuations. A monetary unit represents access to a consumption bundle; at the collective level, monetary value can be approached through the relation between actual consumption and monetary consumption expenditure. Quantitative weighting matters, while purchases for resale or further production must be excluded to avoid counting goods repeatedly.
The concluding monetary argument distinguishes institutional regimes instead of making either nominalism or metallism universally sufficient. Money incomes immediately affect the price level, but their development is constrained where a monetary unit remains convertible into a fixed quantity of a concrete good. Gold then influences purchasing power indirectly through the income system, and maintaining convertibility requires restraint of incompatible income expansion. With inconvertible money, that commodity constraint disappears, making stability dependent on income arrangements. Engliš’s contribution is thus a unified account of monetary calculation and purchasing power that nevertheless preserves the differences between commodity-anchored and nominal monetary systems.
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