 We have already discussed the general issue of the ontological status of money  (section 1.1  above). But there are also significant questions in political philosophy regarding the question of where, and by what sorts of institution, should the money supply be controlled. One complicating factor here is the extensive disagreement about the institutional basis of money creation, as described above. One strand of the credit theory of money emphasizes that in today’s world, money creation is a process in which commercial banks play a significant role. These banks in effect create new money when they make new loans to individual or business customers (see McLeay, Radia, &amp; Thomas 2014; see also Palley 1996; Ryan-Collins et al. 2012; Werner 2014a,b). James Tobin refers to commercial bank-created money, in an evocative if now dated image as “fountain pen money”, that is, money created with the swish of the bank manager’s fountain pen (Tobin 1963).