Contested Money: Toward a New Social Contract

✍ Scribed by Matilde Massó

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 146
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Discussing money is always accompanied by controversy as well as enchantment. Debating what money is and how it performs its main functions in the contemporary economy is fundamental to understanding the social consequences of money transformation associated with the digital revolution. This book explores the links between the current and prospective properties of money, its production, and its relationship to the concepts of value, the common good, and innovation.

Contested Money opens a debate on the role that money could play in a different paradigm based on a renewed conception of monetary properties and functions that are capable of having a positive impact on social and individual welfare. Massó outlines the fundamentals of this monetary model, which would operate as a parallel currency, where the processes of monetary and value creation are connected in a new deal between the citizen and the state, grounded on an approach of reciprocal rights and responsibilities.

This book will appeal to scholars, students, and, more broadly, readers interested in a contemporary understanding of what money is, how it is being transformed, and the role that it can play in redefining the twenty-first-century social contract.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Note
References
Chapter 1 What Is Money?
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Mainstream Approaches to Money as a Medium of Exchange
1.3 Money as Debt?
1.3.1 The Unit of Account to List Debts and Prices
1.4 Money as a Social Institution
Notes
References
Chapter 2 Money and Value
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Money as a Store of Value
2.3 What Is Value?
2.4 Economic Values and Market Society
2.4.1 The Homo Economicus
2.4.2 Limitations of the Model
2.5 Discussion of the Concept of Monetary and Non-Monetary Value
Notes
References
Chapter 3 Value Creation in Market Economies
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Value of Money in Orthodox Theory
3.2.1 Value and the Quantity Theory of Money
3.2.2 Monetary Value and the Monetarist Approach
3.2.2.1 Some Challenges to Monetarism
3.3 The Fundamentals of Credit Money Approaches
3.3.1 Money, Credit, and Lending Activity
3.3.2 State or Political Authorities Are Essential Actors in the Monetary System
3.4 Value Creation in Market Economies
Notes
References
Chapter 4 The Spread of Finance: Innovation, Financialization, and the Transformation of the Market Economy
4.1 Introduction
4.2 What Is Financial Innovation?
4.2.1 Financial Innovation as a Social and Political Process
4.2.2 Understanding Financial Innovation
4.3 Financial Innovation and the Financial Turn of the Economy
4.3.1 Social Consequences of the Expansion of Finance
4.3.2 Financialization Is Not Just an External Factor, It Is a Way of Thinking
Notes
References
Chapter 5 New Forms of Creating and Storing Monetary Value
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Alternative Monetary Initiatives
5.2.1 Ethical Banking
5.2.2 Alternative/Complementary/Local/Currency
5.2.3 New Alternatives
5.3 Private/Corporate Currency
5.4 Electronic Money
5.5 Virtual and Cryptocurrency
5.5.1 Does Bitcoin Represents a New Conception of Money?
5.6 Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC): Economic and Democratic Challenges
Notes
References
Chapter 6 Toward a New Paradigm of Money
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Reasons for a Change
6.2.1 The Need to Rethink the Standard Model of Economic Growth
6.2.2 Tackling Employment Inequality Is Key for a Cohesive and Inclusive Society
6.2.3 The Need to Re-Evaluate the Non-Monetary Economy
6.2.4 Erosion of the Post-War Welfare Social Contract
6.2.5 How Would a New Monetary Design Contribute to This Reformulation?
6.3 The Potential for Money to Have a Social Impact
6.4 Toward a New Paradigm of Money
6.4.1 The Unit of Account Function: Redefining the Relationship between Money and Labor
6.4.2 Means of Payment: The Value of Money and Real Commodities
6.4.3 The Store of Value Function: The Role of the State
Notes
References
Concluding Remarks
Note
References
Index