An Interdisciplinary Approach to Money as Cultural Capital and a Total Social Fact

Abstract

Money is a social invention that goes far back into human history; its trace can be found in most societies, however constituted and organised, and whether or not they form states. It is not a specific feature either of modern capitalist societies or of the way the West evolved towards that modernity. The study of money requires us, then, to break away from the traditional conception that reduces it to its use as an economic instrument for market transactions. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, this chapter aims at elucidating what can be called the nature of money. To define it, we first distinguish between the generic properties of every money and its different and not specifically monetary uses. Then currency is grasped through its three functional forms—account, monetisation and payment—which are reproduced by their dynamic looping. Further we examine the three states in which a currency can be observed—embodied, objectified and institutionalised—and the way each of these states generates a particular form of monetary trust—methodical confidence and hierarchical confidence. Finally, correlating the two preceding points of view, we outline two of its features which most of the time are discarded: value is granted to a money only in the societal environment where it functions as a cultural capital; as an operator of societal totalisation, money, save in periods of crisis, allows the distributive—social and territorial—dimensions of every monetary regime to be concealed.

This article was initially published as Bruno Théret, “Les trois états de la monnaie. Approche interdisciplinaire du fait monétaire”, Revue économique, 2008, 59(4), pp. 813–841.