The debate on the evolution of the payment system between free-banking and central banking

The article focuses on some aspects of the debate over the evolution of the paymentsystem. The work examines in depth the theoretical streams of two groups: thescholars maintaining the need to establish a regime of free-banking against thosewho consider the role of the Central Bank untouchable.A clearer idea of the effective magnitude of the evolution of the payment systemmay be obtained by shifting the focus from the model of an exchange economy tothat of a monetary production economy, upheld by scholars whose position is similarto that of a number of heterodox economists, as well as of Keynes