Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism by Christine Desan

Understanding money; Or, why social and financial accounting should not be conflated

“…Rulers (generally glossed as “the state” by economists) establish a unit of account in which taxes, tributes, fines, and other debts can be cleared (Innes, 1914). Owing to their political power (and institutions deployed to exercise their interests), rulers collect these payments in whatever form(s) they choose (Desan, 2014, 43–50; Hudson, 2004a). The regularity of tax collection makes the value of such money dependable.…”

“…Barter has never formed the basis of society's internal political economy. Heterodox scholars argue the barter‐to‐money proposal is a hypothetical “creation myth” for orthodox economics that is historically inaccurate (e.g., Desan, 2014, 6; Graeber, 2011, 21–41; Hart & Ortiz, 2014, 47; Hudson, 2004a; Ingham, 2020, 18; Neale, 1976, 23; Semenova, 2011).…”

“…Imperial forces spent their coins into the economy (for local goods and the salaries of their soldiers) and then taxed them back from subjugated peoples, which ensured that demand for their coins would not abate. As Desan (2014, 50) observes, “imperial spending sent Roman coins into circulation across the Empire; tax levies assured every user along the way that imperial units of account would remain in demand.” When Roman armies withdrew in the early fifth century AD (and so stopped spending and taxing back their coins), their system of financial money ceased to operate (Haarer, 2014; Spufford, 1988). The social and demographic disruption of the period was more than just financial, and Anglo‐Saxon villages were subsequently established with little regard for Roman towns and roads (Carver, 2019, 196–207).…”

“…2 2 A diversity of heterodox perspectives frame the creation of money differently. For example, Desan's (2014, 24–25) constitutional approach proposes a more “bottom‐up” interpretation by which rulers and ruled bring money into existence as a shared endeavor. Although this sounds nice, it is hard to describe Roman legions or British colonial governments in the Americas (the examples presented next) as benignly creating their monetary systems in conjunction with the Anglo‐Saxon and Iroquoian peoples they were subjugating.…”

“…Likewise, for modern nation‐states, the violence embedded in our monetary systems can be invisible only to those elites (including academics) who benefit from the system rather than those subjected to payday lenders and credit card collection agencies that employ the state's legal system to repossess property and garnish wages (Robbins, 2020). Ultimately, Desan (2014, 59–60) does recognize that it is the power of government that keeps financial money circulating.…”