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Book Details
Abstract
Classical and radical economists have marginalised the role of money, most particularly the role of credit, in driving the machinery of accumulation and exclusion. Although critiques of capitalism from Marxist, feminist and ecological perspectives abound, The Politics of Money is unique in gathering the strengths of these differing critiques into a coherent whole.
The book reviews the role of money in current society through an overview of the history of money creation and a critique of the main theoretical developments in economic thought. Alternative perspectives on money are then presented through a review of a number of radical perspectives but focusing mainly on the work of Marx, Veblen and the social credit perspective of Douglas and the guild socialists.
The authors have drawn upon their varied expertise in economics and the social sciences to produce the foundations of a new political economy that will enable communities to reconstruct their socio-economic fabric through social and political control of money systems.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contents | iii | ||
| Preface | viii | ||
| 1 The Money Society | 1 | ||
| Money and society | 2 | ||
| Globalisation and finance | 5 | ||
| The limits of money | 7 | ||
| Money and economics | 10 | ||
| Vogon economic theory | 13 | ||
| Wider solutions for specific problems | 16 | ||
| Mapping a way forward | 17 | ||
| Outline of the book | 18 | ||
| 2 Why is There No Alternative? | 21 | ||
| Economics as normal science | 22 | ||
| Classical and neo- classical schools of economic thought | 25 | ||
| Basic assumptions of orthodox economics | 28 | ||
| The abstraction of economic systems | 30 | ||
| The role of money in the circular flow | 31 | ||
| The elimination of time in the circular flow model | 33 | ||
| Capital's non-existence in the circular flow | 34 | ||
| Alternatives and variants | 35 | ||
| The flawed logic of orthodox approaches | 39 | ||
| The problem of growth | 40 | ||
| Chrematistics or oikonomics? Production or provisioning? | 41 | ||
| There is an alternative | 43 | ||
| 3 Money, Banking and Credit | 47 | ||
| Money in history | 47 | ||
| Does money have a natural value? | 51 | ||
| Origins of banking and credit | 55 | ||
| John Law and banking as money creation | 57 | ||
| The evolution of the debt- based money economy | 60 | ||
| Money as debt/ credit | 61 | ||
| Credit and the velocity of money | 62 | ||
| How banks multiply money | 63 | ||
| 4 Capitalism - The Elimination of Alternatives | 70 | ||
| Characteristics of capitalism | 71 | ||
| Property as enclosure | 74 | ||
| Enclosing knowledge and skills | 80 | ||
| The capitalist market | 81 | ||
| Marx, money and value | 84 | ||
| The political construction of the capitalist market | 90 | ||
| Enforcing the free market on a global scale | 94 | ||
| Challenging the market | 96 | ||
| 5 Marx, Veblen and the Critique of the Money/ Market System | 98 | ||
| Marx's legacy | 100 | ||
| Thorstein Veblen's institutional perspective | 104 | ||
| Class, work and waged labour | 114 | ||
| Work as transformation | 121 | ||
| 6 Guild Socialism and Social Credit | 123 | ||
| From labourism to social credit | 124 | ||
| The origins of social credit | 126 | ||
| Douglas and social credit | 127 | ||
| The Draft Mining Scheme | 130 | ||
| The case for socialisation of credit | 134 | ||
| Douglas' A+ B theorem and the flawed circular flow model | 138 | ||
| 7 Institutional Critiques of Capitalist Finance | 142 | ||
| The credit basis of capitalism | 142 | ||
| The headquarters of the capitalist system | 144 | ||
| National dividend | 146 | ||
| Reclaiming the common cultural inheritance | 147 | ||
| The utility of work versus the disutility of labour | 149 | ||
| Personal income and the utility of labour | 151 | ||
| Sufficiency and economic democracy | 153 | ||
| 8 New Critiques: Green Economics and Feminist Economics | 157 | ||
| Ecology and economics | 157 | ||
| Environmental or ecological economics? | 160 | ||
| Ecology and food provisioning: from soil cultivation to soil mining | 166 | ||
| Socially responsible finance | 172 | ||
| Women and economics: the marginalisation of women | 173 | ||
| Rethinking the economy | 178 | ||
| Re-visioning cash purchases as social relations | 182 | ||
| 9 New Ways of Thinking About Money and Income | 184 | ||
| Local currency and exchange systems | 184 | ||
| Local money | 185 | ||
| Mutual credit systems | 188 | ||
| LETS schemes | 189 | ||
| Basic (or citizen's) income | 192 | ||
| Producer banks the example of Mondragon | 195 | ||
| Sufficiency and financial independence | 197 | ||
| Jubilee 2000 | 201 | ||
| Micro- credit | 202 | ||
| Linking practice with theory | 206 | ||
| 10 Towards Sustainability and Economic Democracy | 208 | ||
| Money as a social phenomenon | 211 | ||
| Monetary reform | 214 | ||
| From waged labour to social credit | 219 | ||
| Sufficiency and subsistence | 222 | ||
| The good ship TINA | 226 | ||
| A new vision | 228 | ||
| Bibliography | 230 | ||
| Index | 242 | ||
| Adams, John | 13 |