An Anthropology of Money: A Critical Introduction

150 Pages·2017·13.31 MB·English

by  Tim Di Muzio

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
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and by Routledge
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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
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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)
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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.