The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr Dombey's thoughts, that Mr Dombey was quite disconcerted. 'What is money, Paul,' he answered. 'Money?' 'Yes,' said the child ... 'what is money?' Mr Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, currency, depreciation of currency, paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at the little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered: 'Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You know what they are?' 'Oh, yes. I know what they are,' said Paul. 'I don't mean that, papa. I mean, what's money after all?' ... 'What's money after all!' said Mr Dombey, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the presumptuous atom that propounded such an inquiry. 'I mean, papa, what can it do?' returned Paul ... Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the head. 'You'll know better by and by, my man', he said. 'Money, Paul, can do anything.'We are all familiar with Dickens' ironic morality tale, and it makes us smile, as it was intended to do. But here is J. K. Galbraith, at the end of his history of economics, explaining the problem with Milton Friedman's monetarism:There was a further, more grievous difficulty with the Friedman prescription ... and that was that no one knew with certainty what, in the modern economy, is money.' 1
