"Furthermore, this [orthodox] approach strongly implies a teleological, functionalist explanation of both money's origins and its continued existence. It is held that money evolved to overcome costly inefficiency in market exchange for both individuals and the system as a whole. Money clearly does have efficient consequences, but unless they can be shown to have been in the minds of the earliest users of money, they cannot be taken to be causes of origin. As we shall see, the historic record does not support these conjectures. Moreover, it is also obvious that mere knowledge of money's advantages is not sufficient to bring about a viable monetary system or to guarantee its persistence. Money has definite social and political conditions of existence; it is an 'institutional fact' with 'constitutive rules' (Searle 1995:13). "
Geoffrey Ingham The Nature of Money (2004) p.70
