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An Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction PDF

150 Pages·2017·13.31 MB·English
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This book is a must-read for all of those who are concerned with the real nature of our current debt-driven, hyper-consumerist, energy-intensive and patently unsustainable global political economy—governed by concentrations of pri- vately created money that represent claims over the future of our societies, in a process that systematically enriches an already privileged few. The authors com- bine critical perspectives from political economy and anthropology to demystify money, analysing its various forms historically, including a fascinating analysis of its role in the valuation of both life and death in present day capitalism. —Professor Stephen Gill, Distinguished Research Professor, York University, Canada AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF MONEY An Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction shows how our present monetary system was imposed by elites and how they benefit from it. The book poses the question: how, by looking at different forms of money, can we appreciate that they have different effects? The authors demonstrate how modern money requires perpetual growth, an increase in inequality, environmental devastation, increasing commoditization, and, consequently, the perpetual consumption of ever more stuff. These are not intrinsic features of money, but, rather, of debt- money. This text shows that, through studying money in other cultures, we can have money that better serves the broader goals of society. Tim Di Muzio is Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong. Richard H. Robbins is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Anthropology at SUNY at Plattsburgh. The Routledge Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology Editor: Richard H. Robbins, SUNY Plattsburgh and Luis A. Vivanco, University of Vermont This series is dedicated to innovative, unconventional ways to connect under- graduate students and their lived concerns about our social world to the power of social science ideas and evidence. We seek to publish titles that use anthro- pology to help students understand how they benefit from exposing their own lives and activities to the power of anthropological thought and analysis. Our goal is to help spark social science imaginations and, in doing so, open new ave- nues for meaningful thought and action. Books in this series pose questions and problems that speak to the complexi- ties and dynamism of modern life, connecting cutting edge research in exciting and relevant topical areas with creative pedagogy. Available An Anthropology of Money A Critical Introduction Tim Di Muzio and Richard H. Robbins Coffee Culture, 2e Local Experiences, Global Connections Catherine M. Tucker Re-Imagining Milk, 2e Cultural and Biological Perspectives Andrea S. Wiley Reconsidering the Bicycle An Anthropological Perspective on a New (Old) Thing Luis Vivanco Alcohol Social Drinking in Cultural Context Janet Chrzan Forthcoming Seafood From Ocean to Plate Richard Wilk, Shingo Hamada & Lillian Brown A N A N T H R O P O L O G Y O F M O N E Y A Critical Introduction Tim Di Muzio and Richard H. Robbins First published 2017 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Taylor & Francis The right of Tim Di Muzio and Richard H. Robbins to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or reg- istered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-64598-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-64600-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-45345-3 (ebk) Typeset in New Baskerville by Apex CoVantage, LLC CONTENTS Preface viii Acknowledgments x 1 Introduction: The Confusion over Money 1 2 Theory, History and Money 43 3 Modern Money: Credit Money and the Consequences 77 4 The Future of Money and Its Possibilities 99 Bibliography 127 Index 135 PREFACE Money is the ultimate in stuff. With it, you can buy almost anything, and in that lies a tale. Economists generally don’t spend that much time writing or talking about money. It is, for them, simply a tool we use to facilitate exchange—the buying and selling of stuff. But, as we will try to show in this book, the manner in which we create money and what we are (or are not) able to get and do with it matters a great deal. It determines how we live our life and the nature and quality of the world in which we live it. It is our goal to show why this is so. Most of us have known only one type of money, and most don’t even under- stand that money well. This money, for the most part, is not created by govern- ments, as most people seem to think; it is created by private corporations, that is, banks, by lending it out as interest-bearing debt. Furthermore, in historical per- spective, our monetary system is a relatively recent invention. It was preceded by thousands of years of attempts to develop an effective way to promote economic exchange, store wealth, and place a value on things. The monetary system we use emerged from the needs of a 17th-century English king. It may no longer meet present needs; that is another subject that we will explore. By pushing the historical, as well as cross-cultural, study of monetary systems into the background, we forget, also, that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of monetary systems existent in the world today. We need to explore those other systems and examine what they have to offer. The fact that monetary systems change, and that different systems benefit or penalize different categories of people, means that it is possible to design one that does not create the kinds of problems we hope to show emerge from our present system. We want to show, also, that the only thing preventing us from implementing a more equitable monetary system is resistance from the very few benefiting from it. That said, there are significant efforts to change the present monetary system. These range from the creation of electronic currency systems, such as Bitcoin, to local currencies such as Ithaca HOURS, to public referendums to challenge the private banking system and shift to public banking systems. There is even the suggestion that cash itself, that is, paper money, is outmoded, and that we should preface ix eliminate it (see Rogoff 2016). We intend to closely examine those efforts and the differing impacts that they may have on our economy, society, and culture. Finally, we have written this book for a general reader with no special expertise in economics. While there are some technical issues that need to be addressed, we hope to have explained and illustrated them in a way that fits with the flow of the book. The subject of money is, as we hope to show, too important not to be considered by everyone.

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An Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction shows how our present monetary system was imposed by elites and how they benefit from it. The book poses the question: how, by looking at different forms of money, can we appreciate that they have different effects? The authors demonstrate how moder
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