Revaluation & Reparative Economy

Part I.

Let me begin this essay by proposing that money is an idea.

The proposition that money is an idea is, in and of itself, neither a novel nor a controversial proposition. Indeed, the proposition has currency in many academic and political milieus. At the same time, however, this proposition is, more often than not, qualified in ways that dismiss money's significance as an idea. It is often said that “money is just an idea” or that “money is a mere idea”, with the qualifiers “just” and “mere” serving to indicate that the idea of money is not itself significant but, rather, that the idea of money signifies something of greater significance: e.g., Marxian “relations of production” or Foucauldian “power formations”.

I propose, however, that there is no such thing as a “mere” idea, that no idea is “just” an idea. Indeed, I propose that ideas are signified by other things rather than being signifiers of other things. The dollar notes, euro notes, pound notes, or yen notes that you may have in your wallet are not themselves money but, rather, they are signifiers of the idea of money, or, to be rather more precise, they are things that promise to be of monetary significance. 

What economists call the four functions of money are, in light of my proposition, four ways in which things promise to be of monetary significance. This is to say, in other words, that a thing promises to be of monetary significance when it functions as (i) a unit of account, (ii) a store of value, (iii) a means of payment, or (iv) a standard of deferred payment. That being said, however, a promise to be of monetary significance is just that: a promise. A thing may promise to be of monetary significance by functioning in one or more of the four aforementioned ways but never deliver on its promise. Thus, the question for me is never, “Is X, Y, or Z money?” Instead, the question is, “What are the conditions under which X, Y or Z promises to be of monetary significance and delivers on its promise?”

Let me pause here and consider an idea other than the idea of money in order to clarify what I mean when I say that something is an idea. Say, for instance, that you have an idea for redecorating your living room in a mid-century modern style. In light of your idea for redecorating, every piece of furniture that you encounter that is of mid-century modern design, or that bears a resemblance to something of mid-century modern design, or that might complement something of mid-century modern design will promise to be of significance with respect to your idea for redecorating. These pieces of furniture will lure you in and you will notice them in light of your idea for redecorating. If you hadn’t any idea at all or if you had a different idea, you either wouldn’t notice these pieces or you would notice them differently.

Going further, some of these pieces of furniture promise to be of significance in more senses than others: e.g., the piece that promises to fit snugly in the northwest corner of your room, the piece that promises to complement the stain of the wood paneling in your room, and the pieces that promise to fit within your redecorating budget — each of these pieces could be said to have promised to signify your idea in more senses than other pieces. That being said, however, it is only after you select certain pieces of furniture that are promising and attempt to redecorate your living room with these pieces that you discover whether or not the selected pieces of furniture deliver on their promise to be of significance with respect to your idea for redecorating. If the pieces of furniture that you select do not deliver or if they deliver less than what you bargained for—by not fitting the room quite right or by looking tacky—the selected pieces fail to signify your idea for redecorating, and you may decide to return them, to resell them, to give them away, or to put them in storage. If the pieces of furniture that you selected do deliver or deliver more than you bargained for—fitting perfectly in your living room and looking quite stylish—the selected pieces succeed in signifying your idea for redecorating.

Let us now return to the idea of money. The idea of money, as I understand it, is the idea of using one good or service to take a measure of the value contained in another good or service. In light of the idea of money, any and every good or service that promises to be of monetary significance is a good or service that might be able to take a measure of the value contained in another good or service.  But a promise is only a promise: we only discover whether or not a selected good and service delivers on its promise to be of monetary significance after we attempt to use the good or service to take a measure of the value contained in other goods and services.

Those goods and services that we have come to call money are only those goods and services that have so often delivered on their promise to be of monetary significance that we have come to fetishize them and identify them with the idea of money. Indeed, many of the goods and services that have become fetishes for money are goods and services that have been designed to serve no other purpose than to express the idea of money and take measures of value. Still, however, even if these goods and services have been designed for no other purpose than expressing the idea of money, to say that these goods and services are themselves money and nothing more, is like saying that a 1-pound object designed for no other purpose than to measure the weight of another object is itself a weight and nothing more. Certainly, speaking casually, we do call a 1-pound object designed to measure weights a “weight” but, in practice, we know better than to treat it as if it was “weight itself” rather than a particular expression of the idea of weight. Similarly, although we casually refer to goods and services designed for the express purpose of taking measures of value as “money”, in practice, we should know better than to treat these goods and services as if they were themselves money rather than particular expressions of the idea of money.

Consider, for instance, the fact that a weight labelled “one pound” might promise to weigh one pound, but this labelled weight may fail to deliver on its promise if it does not balance a scale when measured against other weights that we hold to be one pound weights. Similarly, the currency in terms of which other goods and services have been priced might promise to be of monetary significance, but the currency only fulfills its promise to be of monetary significance when someone actually pays the price for a good or service using that currency. There is, of course, nothing wrong with using the terms “weight” and “money” casually. In fact, I will use the term “money” quite casually throughout this text. The problem is only in assuming that what is casually called money will always deliver on its promise to be of monetary significance.

As I have already stated above, goods and services commonly promise to be of monetary significance by either functioning as a unit of account, a store of value, a means of payment, or as a standard of deferred payment. Indeed, it can be said that a good or service that functions in all four of these ways promises to be of monetary significance in every common sense of the idea of money. That being said, however, depending upon the circumstances at play, a good or service may only function in one common sense in order to promise to be of monetary significance, and it is possible that a good or service can function in none of these common senses and still promise to be of monetary significance. What’s more, a good or service that functions in every common sense might still fail to deliver on its promise to be of monetary significance, while a good that does not function in any common sense might successfully deliver on its promise to be of monetary significance. How is this possible?

That which promises (from pro "before" + mittere "to release, let go; send, throw") is that which sets out in some way. That which delivers ( from de "away" + Latin liberare "to free," from liber "free, unrestricted, unimpeded") on a promise is that which sets out and makes it, having overcome encumbrances (from in- "in"  + combrus "barricade, obstacle") along its way. In light of these etymological and tropological ideas, I find that a useful metaphor with respect to any idea of "promising" and "delivering", of "setting out" and "making it", is the sending and receiving of letters by post. Ay, and, with respect to the idea of money, I hold that the issues involved in posting letters (dis-)simulate the issues involved in promising monetary significance in the most profound ways.

The posted letter promises and sets out to convey a message to its addressee and the letter conveys its message when it is delivered and makes it to its addressee intact. Similarly, the good or service which promises to be of monetary significance sets out to take a measure of the value contained in other goods and services, and it delivers on its promise to be of monetary significance if and when it makes it and takes a measure of the value contained in another good or service. Just as letters don't post themselves, the good or service that promises to be of monetary significance does not take measures itself. In other words, just as the posting of a letter assumes the existence of postal services, the promise to be of monetary significance assumes the existence of financial services. Indeed, what economists have called the four functions of money are, in fact, only the four most common financial services: accounting services, payment processing services, debt services, and value storing services. 

An unscrupulous postal service provider can wreak havoc by intentionally mis-delivering letters and by taking advantage of the information conveyed in letters. Similarly, an unscrupulous financial service provider can wreak havoc by mis-delivering on promises of monetary significance and by taking advantage of the value conveyed in promises of monetary significance. Those who claim that money is the root of all evil by citing the bad behavior of unscrupulous financial service providers, are like people claiming that letters are the root of all evil by citing the bad behavior of unscrupulous postal service providers. The benefits of being able to post letters are immense and, knowing the great harm that can be done by unscrupulous postal service providers, we have developed social conventions that enable us to recognize and seek reparations from unscrupulous postal service providers. Similarly, the benefits of being able to take measures of value are immense, and we have also developed social conventions that enable us to recognize and seek reparations from unscrupulous financial service providers. If we complain that money is the root of all evil but do not complain about letters in the same breath, this is because the social conventions that we have developed around postal services are effective at outing unscrupulous postal service providers but those that we have developed around financial services are ineffective at outing unscrupulous financial service providers. Unscrupulous financial service providers are, of course, happy to have us believe that it is money that corrupts because, in fact, it is they who use the idea of money to corrupt, systematically biasing measures of value, tipping the scales to their own advantage.

Many societies have built public infrastructures to guarantee a modicum of capable and scrupulous postal services at a fair cost for all, but few societies have built public infrastructures to guarantee a modicum of capable and scrupulous financial services at a fair cost for all. Imagine if all letters addressed to the underprivileged and powerless were held for ransom by postal service providers until their ransom victims overpaid to receive them or took out usurious loans from postal service providers in order to receive them. Ay, that is how the underprivileged and powerless often relate to financial service providers. Goods and services that promise to be of monetary significance for the underprivileged and powerless are often held for ransom by financial service providers and the underprivileged and powerless overpay and take on debt in order to receive them. What’s more, financial service providers curry favor with powerful and privileged actors who are not themselves in the business of providing financial services, helping these actors maintain and extend their power and privilege via investments in exploitative financial services. It is as if postal services not only held the letters of the underprivileged and powerless for ransom but also read letters held for ransom in order to inform the privileged and powerful of goings on amongst the underprivileged and powerless.

Privilege and power maintained and extended by way of financial services that exploit the underprivileged and powerless: this is precisely what Randy Martin has called the “financialization of everyday life” and it is the basis for what Sheldon Wolin has called the “inverted totalitarianism” of liberal globalism. Today, many of us are shocked by Abteilung M – Department M of the Stasi, which monitored letters posted in the German Democratic Republic in order to find out the vulnerabilities of the East Germans. Tomorrow, others will be shocked by the Big Three Credit Bureaus in America which monitor the financial histories of Americans so that financial firms can find out which Americans are financially vulnerable and exploit their vulnerabilities, making it more and more costly for financially vulnerable Americans to gain access to financial services and making less and less costly for rich Americans to gain access to financial services.

With this in mind, let us return to the thesis of this essay. While I recognize that the idea of money is the condition of possibility for the wretched actions of unscrupulous financiers, I also recognize that the idea of money is no more responsible for the wretchedness of unscrupulous financiers than the idea of the letter is responsible for the wretchedness of blackmailers who hold purloined letters over their victims. The idea of the letter is the condition of possibility for exploitative miseries, like the holding of letters for ransom, as well as for creative marvels, like epistolary literature; similarly, the idea of money is the condition of possibility for both exploitative miseries and creative marvels. In and through this essay, I hope to encourage the creative marvels that the idea of money makes possible and to discourage the exploitative miseries that the idea of money makes possible. The exploitative miseries in and through which the unscrupulous financier consolidates power and privilege are what I shall call artless expressions of the idea of money or exploitative financial services. What I shall call artful expressions of the idea of money, or reparative financial services, are the creative marvels that would counter the exploitative miseries of the financialization of everyday life and dissipate power and privilege thereby.