This paper aims to reflect about money in contemporary capitalism, particularly about the question related to the fact that, nowadays, even in the world level, the thing that embodies money (the American dollar) is inconvertible, i.e., doesn't have ballast, doesn't have any relationship, even remote, with a true commodity. The theoretical approach is that offered by Marxian monetary theory, paradigm that is read in a Hegelian way. We depart from the difference between symbol and sign to show how Marx, moving within the Hegelian framework, could construct a commodities language, in which money - and the autonomy it has in face of the things it represents - has a detached role. Finally we indicate the relation we see between this theoretical construct and the nature of money in contemporary capitalism.
symbol; sign; money; Marxian monetary theory; contemporary capitalism