Transizione verso cosa? Un’ anthropologia storica della finanza, della moneta e delle crisi economiche

Abstract

The last decade of financial crisis, «financialization» and «quantitative easing» has been a feast of public learning about money and finance. Anthropology, history, and political economy rediscovered a «forgotten» history of money as fundamentally a public good rather than primarily a private one. This article discusses the rediscovery of that history. It also notes that, after a turbulent decade of class and political polarization, including a worldwide pandemic, we also learnt the hard fact that under capitalism it just cannot be publicly conceded that money, if we want to, costs nothing, even though that is scientifically true; nor that cities and our planet are not for private accumulation. At least, it appears, this cannot be said with full logical consequence. It requires the end of capitalism. But it is of immeasurable importance for our politics that we now know this to be true.