For a "mainstream" approach to the "tax-foundational" view of money, see: http://econweb.tamu.edu/dgoldberg/research/implicit1.pdf Also, historians of thought should find this book interesting: Wray, L. Randall, ed., 2004, Credit and State Theories of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell Innes, Edward Elgar. Best, Mathew Forstater