"The Subversion of Money-as-Command in the Current Crisis"

Critique, 2006

This paper evaluates Marx's contribution to a theory of money and assesses its implications for an understanding of contemporary capitalism. It is argued that Marx viewed commodity-money as the essence of money, and that central to this essence was the antagonism between capital and labour. The article takes issue with Neo-Marxist interpretations of Marx which emphasize the symbolic nature of money and the rational calculative aspects of capitalism in place of the connection between commodity-money, symbolic forms of money and the class struggle. Finally, it provides an outline of how one might draw on Marx's work to further an understanding of the modern economy, where symbolic forms of money have displaced commodity-based money in the circulation and reproduction of capital.

Marxism After Modernity, 2006

This paper contends that political economy may profit from an understanding of money that is both able to account for its systemic importance as well as money's specific role for the contemporary distribution of wealth. 'Money-ness' is a strategic factor in profit-making and capital accumulation. If we accord moneyness to all those instruments that make the repackaging of credit and other financial assets and liabilities and their capitalization possible, we arrive at an understanding of money that underscores the Marxian analysis of the structural importance of the money relation for capital accumulation that is up to speed with current financial innovations. As a social structure and process, moneymaking through capital permeates society. As a public-private deal between the state, rentiers, banks, and taxpayers that has existed since the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694, it binds these actors together in shifting relations of dependence. Under financial capitalism today, what counts as money and how far moneyness stretches into the realms of financial innovation has been a core object of struggle in the public-private deal of money creation.

2017

The theory and critique of capitalism is back at the center of scholarly debate. With it comes a growing awareness of the analytical and political importance of money and money creation. Moving from the more systemic reflections of Karl Marx to more recent work on money theory by Geoffrey Ingham and in financial economics, the paper focuses on three of money's "deeds." As a social structure and process, it makes moneymaking through capital permeate all our societies. As a public-private partnership between the state, rentiers, banks, and taxpayers that has existed since the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694, it binds these actors together in shifting relations of dependence. In today's financial capitalism, what counts as money and how far moneyness stretches into the realms of financial innovation has been the core object of struggle in the public-private partnership of money. In conclusion, the paper discusses how contemporary money redistributes intra-so...

Instead of defining money as a means or tool for social communication and exchange, Marx determines money as the really existing universal and as existing form of an abstract social mode of domination. His conception is the consequence of transforming Kant’s concept of “thinghood” into a social and material concept, which most scholarship overlooks. As such, it confronts us with the problem of how we should think of really abstract social relationships and a form of social reproduction that is itself abstract because social reproduction depends upon the money form. In this paper I first analyze Marx’s early concept of money as the thing itself, after which I reconstruct how this aspect is finally turned into a social concept in the Grundrisse.

Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought, 2020

Marx and Financialisation "with the stroke of an enchanter's wand, it (the public debt) endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or even in usury. … the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy."

Marx's Theory of Money, 2005

This paper has two objectives. In the first part-more succinct because it uses concepts that are more well known-I seek to demonstrate that Marx unequivocally defines money as a commodity and that he maintains this definition in his analysis of advanced capitalism. In the second part I attempt to clarify the theoretical bases that he provides, in order to demonstrate that from the point of view or logic of his theoretical framework, money must be a commodity. In order to do so I resort primarily to Marx's own writings, through the presentation of the logical structure of his theory, and showing where the passages needed for my demonstration are situated within his work. The numerous literal quotations from Marx's work can be justified by the need to leave no room for doubt regarding my interpretation. I also seek to show that attention must be paid both to what Marx says and doesn't say. This is important because we can thus appreciate the total absence of any reference in Marx to the hypothesis that money must at any point become a non-commodity. Finally, my goal is to provide a clear exposition of what Marx's theory of money is, rather than engage in discussion regarding the extent to which his theory is the one which most accurately captures reality.