Money as a social relation beyond the state: a contribution to the institutionalist approach based on the Argentinian trueque

This paper provides a contribution to the institutionalist approach to money through ethnographic research carried out in two local currency systems in Argentina (known as trueque). It argues that Argentinian local currencies must be considered as monies in their own right even if they differ from state and bank issued currencies, because they can be understood as systems of evaluation and settlement of debts denominated in a specific unit of account (the crédito). Money is said to be an ambivalent social relation because in the two cases studied it mediates very different dynamics, exacerbating inequality in one context and promoting collective emancipation in another. This difference is due to the kind of political communities that the crédito tends to forge. In both Rosario and Poriajhu, the political community is defined by a set of values that legitimizes ongoing monetary practices and institutions rather the State's coercion.