It is not possible within the love code to threaten to withdraw love. The threat already equals that withdrawal and so affords no power. In economic matters, power, i.e. the power of the person who possesses scarce resources, is neutralized by money – one can buy them from him. It is only a question of one's own resources and of calculating rationally how much to offer. In comparison with the redistribution in late primitive societies of scarce goods in the 'larger household' of society, a monetary economy makes it possible to distinguish clearly between positive stimulation and negative sanction, and thus to distinguish between the corresponding forms of influence.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 768