1,721,011 research outputs found
Cryptocurrencies and the Denationalization of Money
No full textThe theoretical foundations of bitcoin have been frequently traced back to the Austrian school of economics. To the extent that cryptocurrencies are not issued by a centralized authority and do not rely on an official legal tender status for their acceptance, they may indeed appear as a dramatic departure from the historical trend that has led, over the past few centuries, to the making of national money and as a decisive step toward the “denationalization of money” advocated by F. A. von Hayek. This article investigates to what extent bitcoin truly embodies the principles of stable money prescribed by Hayek and whether the proliferation of cryptocurrencies constitutes a Hayekian monetary competition
Complementary currencies: a prospect on money from a retrospect on premodern practices
No full textLe mutazioni sono generalmente considerate imperfezioni della moneta di antico regime, destinate ad essere corrette con l’istituzione del gold standard. La storia del denaro e del pensiero monetario dal sedicesimo al diciottesimo secolo considerata nel presente articolo mostra, al contrario, che le mutazioni erano uno strumento disegnato per mantenere lo standard metallico laddove era richiesto, ovvero nel circuito degli scambi di lunga distanza, preservando nel contempo la possibilità di una autonoma politica distributiva nelle economie locali. La distinzione teorica tra funzioni monetarie (misura e mezzo di scambio) si traduceva sul piano operativo nella distinzione tra moneta ideale e reale, fornendo, in tal modo, monete complementari per spazi economici complementari. Tali distinzioni appaiono come tratti costitutivi della moneta nella prospettiva di una rilettura dei capisaldi del pensiero monetario da Smith a Keynes.Debasement has generally been condemned as a defect of premodern money, that was eventually amended by the institution of the gold standard. Building on monetary history and thought from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, this article argues that debasement was instead an instrument designed to maintain the metal standard where it was needed, in the circuit of long-distance trade, while preserving the possibility of an autonomous distribution within local economies. The theoretical distinction between monetary functions (measure and means of exchange) was made effective by the articulation of ideal and real money (via debasement and enhancement), providing complementary economic areas with complementary currencies. Moreover the distinction between monetary functions appears as a constituent feature of money also in the perspective of a reappraisal of the milestones of monetary thought, from Smith to Keynes
Produzione ed estrazione di valore: identificare la rendita per contrastare la disuguaglianza
No full textThe marginalist paradigm, on which mainstream economic theory is based, rests on the assumption that the value of a good coincides with its market price. With her book The Value of Everything, Mariana Mazzucato offers an empirical review of the forms of production in the global economy and refers to classical economists, such as Smith, Ricardo and Marx to bring the issue of value back at the centre of the debate. The theory of value of the classical economists draws a fundamental distinction between wages, profits and rent and raises the question of the functional distribution of income between these three forms of remuneration. Mihályi and Szelényi’s work (Rent-Seekers, Profits, Wages and Inequality) addresses precisely this problem. They propose that, by shifting attention from the top 1% (or 0.1%) of the income distribution to the 20% of the richest, several forms of rent appear even today as a major cause of inequality. Franzini and Raitano (Il mercato rende disuguali?) investigate the functional distribution of income focusing on Italy
Reconciling money and goods: Keynes's commodity and currency plans for the postwar world
Full text linkGrowing volatility of commodity prices has been both symptom and factor of instability over the past years. The problem, however, is not new. In the interwar period, it already attracted the attention of Keynes, who ascribed it to the lack of storage of surplus stocks. According to Keynes, markets for raw materials and foodstuffs are inherently unstable. Compared with other forms of wealth, particularly financial assets, commodities are unattractive for private agents since they not only yield nothing but entail high carrying costs. In order to supplement inadequate private storage and to provide a buffer between production and supply and between consumption and demand, Keynes proposed to arrange public storage of commodities in buffer stocks under the management of an international organization. Between 1942 and 1944, his plans for a Commodity Control were widely discussed and repeatedly redrafted, but, like the Clearing Union proposal, they were eventually set aside. This research analyses the peculiar institutional design of Keynes’s postwar commodity schemes
Riconciliare economia e società: monete complementari per lo sviluppo locale e la coesione sociale
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Silence Is Gold: Some Preliminary Notes on Money, Speech and Calculation
No full textThe paper will address the traditional relationship between money and speech, in view of the fact that the empire of calculation constitutes a threat for both. The possibility of an unconditional calculation of everything threatens the relationship that money and speech have with nought, and so it menaces also the very root of their relationship.
What is at stake with money and language is seemingly what we call communication. But what do money and language, in their very operation, put in common? Is it only the things exchanged or, more profoundly, the sense of exchange itself?
Aristotle says that in the polis, citizens put words and deeds in common. Communication is then a political dimension. Reduced to means of communication, money and speech can legitimately appear as objects of a calculation. The main impolitic characteristic of this calculation –which is in fact a logic reduced to mere logistics–is, however, the fact that it demands to be accomplished as a total calculation, i.e. as a calculation capable of calculating its own conditions of possibility
Resocialising finance to exit the crisis
No full textModern financial systems betray the social nature of finance. Finance has come increasingly to rely on what Keynes regarded as ‘the most anti-social’ of principles, namely the ‘fetish of liquidity’, which implies the transformation of all relationships into a negotiable security, through the liberalisation of capital markets, the adoption of fair value accounting, the rise of securitisation and other financial innovations. After discussing the theoretical and practical implications of failing to recognise the social dimensions of finance, the chapter explores various routes for its resocialisation
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