Sono conquistatori e noi siamo gl'indiani (They are the conquistadors and we are the Indians). I don't know if this is a colloquial phrase in Italy, or if it was a poetic turn of phrase particular to the Italian taxi driver speeding through the narrow streets of Rome, while chatting freely on his mobile phone. He was referring to the Italian obsession with technology; mobile phones mainly. Italians have been hypnotized and seduced: ironic for natives of the land that invented Gucci, Prada, Ferragamo, Boss and Ferrari.

The conquistadors were motivated by the allure of gold, a shiny, rare, metallic object. The properties of money we have considered so far relate to functional properties. Interdependence follows from money's role as a medium of exchange, facilitating the division of labour. The dramatic expansion in our relations with the future follows from money's function as a means to control the future, through insurance; investment and risk-taking; Common standards of measurement are a precondition of mediated exchange, and permit aggregation and analysis. But the importance of these functions does not suffice to explain money's hold over us, and our collective and personal obsessions with money.

Simmel considers money's abstract nature to be its unique property: “money alone … does not determine its further use” ([1907] 2004: 307). In a barter economy; everything involved in exchange has a specific use. To own something is to use it. But money is abstract, like an idea.