Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
allows for universal exchangeability and thereby abstraction. By the
late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century much of the money in
circulation was in paper form, as cheques or banknotes, known as
'fiduciary' money. From this it was a short step to 'fiat' paper money,
notes that are issued on the fiat of the sovereign, and are legal tender
representing so many units of a currency, but are not promises to
pay something else, such as a precious metal. Though nominally
connected to the value of a material substance, gold or silver, fidu-
ciary paper money started the process completed by fiat money, of
turning money into a pure sign. The concept of paper money led to
extended debates in the nineteenth century that concerned not just
questions of finance, but wider issues relating to the nature of signs
in general. The idea that a sign could stand for and act in place of
what it is supposed to represent was a cause of anxiety. An American
cartoon of the
s showed a rag doll next to a notice declaring
that it is 'a real baby by Act of Congress', being offered a piece of
paper upon which is written 'This is milk by Act of Congress', while
on the wall there are a number of pictures, including one of a house
inscribed with 'this is a house and lot by act of the architect', one of
a cow, similarly declaring 'this is a cow by act of the artist'. Beneath
is a banknote saying 'this is money by Act of Congress'. Here it is
possible to see prefigurings of both our current concern with virtu-
ality and simulacra and of the anxieties such concepts generate. The
transformation of money into sign enabled capitalism's develop-
ment and expansion, by greatly facilitating the operations of credit
and the transfer of capital. Only recently with the increasing use
of e-money and the concomitant rise of e-commerce has the dema-
terialization of money been fully realized, but, as the above suggests,
it is immanent within, and necessary for, capitalism's operation.
Such abstraction resonated with developments in areas such as
mathematics and logic. The work of self-taught mathematician
George Boole in formulating symbolic logic would become a crucial
element in the future development of information technologies.
1870
