Michel Aglietta and the Anthropology of Money

Discussion

John Grahl:

"In 1982, in a work then considered bafflingly unorthodox, Michel Aglietta and André Orléan attempted to use the anthropological speculations of René Girard as a basis for monetary theory(La violence de la monnaie, Aglietta and Orléan, 1982; hereafter VM) . Sixteen years later they have returned to the scene of the crime in a new attempt to establish such anthropological foundations (La monnaie souveraine, Aglietta and Orléan (eds) 1998, hereafter MS) . Meanwhile, both authors, but especially Aglietta, have drawn on the original theoretical structure to inform a wide range of monetary studies: on the role and origins of the central bank, on European monetary integration, on instabilities in international finance, on international monetary regimes.

This literature can be seen as contributing to a radical Keynesian account of monetary phenomena:

- firstly, because it adds, to the central Keynesian insight of uncertainty as the determinant ofliquidity preference, a corresponding theory of the determination of the monetary object itself, that is, of the birth and death of monetary systems;

- secondly, because it explores the extra-economic conditions which influence the stability of monetary orders.

Largely because much of this material remains untranslated, it is not well known to anglophone economists. "

(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247516442_Review_essay_money_as_sovereignty_The_economics_of_Michel_Aglietta)