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Money: Instrument of Exchange or Social Institution of Value?

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Book cover Financial Crises and the Nature of Capitalist Money

Abstract

In social life, everything is representations, ideas, sentiments, and nowhere else can we observe better the effective power of representations.2

Under the title of ‘La sociologie économique de la monnaie’ this text was published in French in 2009 by the Presses Universitaires de France in Traité de sociologie économique edited by Philippe Steiner and François Vatin. We thank the Presses Universitaires de France for having authorised the present publication. The present version, translated by Geoffrey Ingham, differs from the original. In order to underline the difference between the analysis of money presented here and conventional economic accounts, the term ‘instrument’ rather than ‘medium’ of exchange has been retained.

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Authors
  1. André Orléan
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Macquarie University, Australia

    Jocelyn Pixley (Honorary Professor in Sociology, Senior Visiting Fellow, IRRC, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Professorial Research Fellow) (Honorary Professor in Sociology, Senior Visiting Fellow, IRRC, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Professorial Research Fellow)

  2. University of New South Wales, Australia

    Jocelyn Pixley (Honorary Professor in Sociology, Senior Visiting Fellow, IRRC, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Professorial Research Fellow) & G. C. Harcourt (Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of Economics, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Professor Emeritus) (Honorary Professor in Sociology, Senior Visiting Fellow, IRRC, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Professorial Research Fellow) &  (Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of Economics, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Professor Emeritus)

  3. Global Policy Institute, London Metropolitan University, UK

    Jocelyn Pixley (Honorary Professor in Sociology, Senior Visiting Fellow, IRRC, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Professorial Research Fellow) (Honorary Professor in Sociology, Senior Visiting Fellow, IRRC, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Professorial Research Fellow)

  4. Cambridge University, UK

    G. C. Harcourt (Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of Economics, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Professor Emeritus) (Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of Economics, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Professor Emeritus)

  5. University of Adelaide, Australia

    G. C. Harcourt (Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of Economics, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Professor Emeritus) (Visiting Professorial Fellow in the School of Economics, Faculty of the Australian School of Business, Emeritus Reader in the History of Economic Theory, Professor Emeritus)

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© 2013 André Orléan

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Orléan, A. (2013). Money: Instrument of Exchange or Social Institution of Value?. In: Pixley, J., Harcourt, G.C. (eds) Financial Crises and the Nature of Capitalist Money. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137302953_4

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