The Difference That Money Makes: Sovereignty, Indecision, And The Politics Of Liquidity

by Colin Drumm

This work is concerned to rethink the relation between money and the state in a way that challenges both Marxist and chartalist stories about the history and nature of money and monetary phenomena. In doing so, it examines the problem of liquidity, or the question of whether or not there exists a market in money, as a problem of constitutional order and class struggle, and argues that this problem can be illuminated by means of a study of tragic drama. It traces a genealogy of “modern money” created through the monetization of public liabilities through the first emergence of a permanent peacetime deficit state in early modern England, and asks what we might learn about this genealogy through an attention to the works of William Shakespeare as a sensitive observer of the social and political fault lines out of which the system of modern money emerged. In doing so, it follows his historical gaze backwards through history, to medieval England and the earliest coinage societies of Mediterranean antiquity. Out of this discussion is generated a new theory of money that challenges all currently existing orthodox and heterodox theories, and which sees money as constituted not by an identity or equivalence but rather by a difference or a spread, in terms of which options can be created and priced.

557 pages, Unknown Binding

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[G J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Available on Dropbox via his pinned tweet @drumm_colin.

Fascinating read! Viewing the monetary system itself as an independent branch of class struggle that predates capitalism fixes some glaring issues with Marx's conception of money. That focal points in Europe's history and the twin 'evils' of incest and tyranny are tied so explicitly to issues of soverignty and monetary debasement, and ALSO then linked to classical myths in Shakespeare and Oedpius is able to explain so much of Western political thought. Blown away by all the connections - definitely something I will need to think about for quite some time to grasp all its implications.