Hospitality versus Exchange: The Limits of Monetary Economies
This paper attempts to specify theoretically the origins of money. Rather than the exchange-based view of neoclassical economists where money is seen as a transaction cost-reducing instrument (and where exchange itself is asserted to be a universal phenomenon), we argue that money is a social relationship, specifically a debt relationship, that emerges with propertied, class society. "Primitive" (pre-class) society could not generate money, as the rule of hospitality, universally practiced among such organizations, precluded debt and the self-interested behavior that is consistent with debt. Adopting the Chartalist position on the matter, we show that money is symptomatic of privilege, of inequality, of economic and political power.
Year of publication: |
2001
|
---|---|
Authors: | Bell, Stephanie ; Henry, John |
Published in: |
Review of Social Economy. - Taylor & Francis Journals, ISSN 0034-6764. - Vol. 59.2001, 2, p. 203-226
|
Publisher: |
Taylor & Francis Journals |
Subject: | Chartalism | Debt | Exchange | Hospitality | Money | Property |
Saved in:
Online Resource