The Politics of Money Towards Sustainability and Economic Democracy

by Hutchinson, Frances; Mellor, Mary; Olsen, Wendy

• ISBN13: 9780745317212
• ISBN10: 0745317219
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-11-20
• Publisher: Pluto Press

Summary

On the whole, 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, ecological and many other perspectives abound, The Politics of Money is unique in gathering the strengths of these differing critiques into a coherent whole. 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. The book opens with a review of the role of money in current society, 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. In the final part of the book contemporary monetary theories and experiments are analysed within the theoretical and historical perspectives provided in the earlier chapters. The main argument of the book is that it is necessary to understand the crucial role of finance in driving the 'free market' economy if a democratic and sustainable economy is to be achieved.

Author Biography

Frances Hutchinson is a research fellow at the University of Bradford with a lifelong interest in ecology, economy and society. She has published three books so far, including The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism (1997).
Mary Mellor is a professor in the School of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Northumbria at Newcastle and Chair of the Sustainable Cities Research Institute. She is the author of books on the social economy, feminism and ecology. Her latest book is Feminism and Ecology (1997).
Wendy Kay Olsen is a lecturer in Planning and Development at the University of Bradford.

Table of Contents

Preface	viii
The money society	1	(20)
Money and society	2	(3)
Globalisation and finance	5	(2)
The limits of money	7	(3)
Money and economics	10	(3)
Vogon economic theory	13	(3)
Wider solutions for specific problems	16	(1)
Mapping a way forward	17	(1)
Outline of the book	18	(3)
Why is there no alternative?	21	(26)
Economics as normal science	22	(3)
Classical and neo-classical schools of economic thought	25	(3)
Basic assumptions of orthodox economics	28	(2)
The abstraction of economic systems	30	(1)
The role of money in the circular flow	31	(2)
The elimination of time in the circular flow model	33	(1)
Capital's non-existence in the circular flow	34	(1)
Alternatives and variants	35	(4)
The flawed logic of orthodox approaches	39	(1)
The problem of growth	40	(1)
Chrematistics or oikonomics? Production or provisioning?	41	(2)
There is an alternative	43	(4)
Money, banking and credit	47	(23)
Money in history	47	(4)
Does money have a natural value?	51	(4)
Origins of banking and credit	55	(2)
John Law and banking as money creation	57	(3)
The evolution of the debt-based money economy	60	(1)
Money as debt/credit	61	(1)
Credit and the velocity of money	62	(1)
How banks multiply money	63	(1)
Fractional reserve banking	64	(3)
The evolution of the money creation process	67	(3)
Capitalism - the elimination of alternatives	70	(28)
Characteristics of capitalism	71	(3)
Property as enclosure	74	(6)
Enclosing knowledge and skills	80	(1)
The capitalist market	81	(3)
Marx, money and value	84	(6)
The political construction of the capitalist market	90	(4)
Enforcing the free market on a global scale	94	(2)
Challenging the market	96	(2)
Marx, Veblen and the critique of the money / market system	98	(25)
Marx's legacy	100	(4)
Thorstein Veblen's institutional perspective	104	(10)
Class, work and waged labour	114	(7)
Work as transformation	121	(2)
Guild socialism and social credit	123	(19)
From labourism to social credit	124	(2)
The origins of social credit	126	(1)
Douglas and social credit	127	(3)
The Draft Mining Scheme	130	(4)
The case for socialisation of credit	134	(4)
Douglas' A+B theorem and the flawed circular flow model	138	(4)
Institutional critiques of capitalist finance	142	(15)
The credit basis of capitalism	142	(2)
The headquarters of the capitalist system	144	(2)
National dividend	146	(1)
Reclaiming the common cultural inheritance	147	(2)
The utility of work versus the disutility of labour	149	(2)
Personal income and the utility of labour	151	(2)
Sufficiency and economic democracy	153	(4)
New critiques: green economics and feminist economics	157	(27)
Ecology and economics	157	(3)
Environmental or ecological economics?	160	(6)
Ecology and food provisioning: from soil cultivation to soil mining	166	(6)
Socially responsible finance	172	(1)
Women and economics: the marginalisation of women	173	(5)
Rethinking the economy	178	(6)
New ways of thinking about money and income	184	(24)
Local currency and exchange systems	184	(1)
Local money	185	(3)
Mutual credit systems	188	(1)
LETS schemes	189	(3)
Basic (or citizen's) income	192	(3)
Producer banks - the example of Mondragon	195	(2)
Sufficiency and financial independence	197	(4)
Jubilee 2000	201	(1)
Micro-credit	202	(4)
Linking practice with theory	206	(2)
Towards sustainability and economic democracy	208	(22)
Money as a social phenomenon	211	(3)
Monetary reform	214	(5)
From waged labour to social credit	219	(3)
Sufficiency and subsistence	222	(4)
The good ship TINA	226	(2)
A new vision	228	(2)
Bibliography	230	(12)
Index	242