Against Money

In this “Against Money,” PERI researcher Arjun Jayadev and coauthor J.W. Mason explain how and why money is misunderstood by the world it dominates—as well as the dangerous social implications of this misunderstanding. “Against Money” tackles the most dearly held “truths” of economics, arguing that the world of money has never been an impartial representation of the world of things. Instead, its existence in different forms—debt, capital, liquidity, and interest—increasingly shapes events in the real world rather than just reflecting them. Sometimes money enables new forms of cooperation; more often it facilitates domination. Human existence is not just facilitated by money but also governed by it.