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Money : 5,000 years of debt and power / Michel Aglietta ; in collaboration with Pepita Ould Ahmed and Jean-Francois Ponsot ; translated by David Broder.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Aglietta, Michel, author.
- Standardized Title:
- Monnaie. English
- Language:
- English
- French
- Subjects (All):
- Monetary policy.
- Money--History.
- Money.
- History.
- Economic anthropology.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (421 pages) : illustrations
- Edition:
- English-language edition.
- Place of Publication:
- London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2018.
- Language Note:
- Translated from the French.
- System Details:
- text file
- Summary:
- The major French economist offers a new theory of money As the financial crisis reached its climax in September 2008, the most important figure on the planet was Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The whole financial system was collapsing, with little to stop it. When a senator asked Bernanke what would happen if the central bank did not carry out its rescue package, he replied, "If we don't do this, we may not have an economy on Monday." -- What saved finance, and the Western economy, was fiscal and monetary stimulus - an influx of money, created ad hoc. It was a strategy that raised questions about the unexamined nature of money itself, an object suddenly revealed as something other than a neutral signifier of value. Through its grip on finance and the debt system, money confers sovereign power on the economy. If confidence in money is not maintained, crises follow. Looking over the last 5,000 years, Michel Aglietta explores the development of money and its close connection to sovereign power. This book employs the tools of anthropology, history and political economy in order to analyse how political structures and monetary systems have transformed one another. We can thus grasp the different eras of monetary regulation and the crises capitalism has endured throughout its history.
- Contents:
- Money as a relation of social belonging. Money is the foundation of value ; Logics of debt and forms of sovereignty
- The historical trajectories of money. From ancient empires to the gold standard ; The upheavals of the twentieth century
- Crises and monetary regulation. Monetary crises in history ; Monetary regulation under capitalism
- The enigma of international currency. International currency faced with the test of history ; Transitioning to a new international monetary system.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 401-408) and index.
- Electronic reproduction. Ipswich, MA Available via World Wide Web.
- Description based on print version record.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Henry Putney Beers Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9781786634443
- 1786634449
- Publisher Number:
- 99984040244
- 40028606982
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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