The Nature of Money


Book Description

Mainstream economics fails to grasp the nature of money. It is seen either as a 'neutral veil' over the operation of the 'real' economy or as a 'thing' - a special commodity. This book draws on neglected traditions in the social sciences to develop a theory of the 'social relation' of money.




Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money


Book Description

Could there ever be an alternative stock exchange dedicated to slow, small, and local? Could a million American families get their food from CSAs? What if you had to invest 50 percent of your assets within 50 miles of where you live?Such questions-at the heart of slow money-represent the first steps on our path to a new economy. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money presents an essential new strategy for investing in local food systems and introduces a group of fiduciary activists who are exploring what should come after industrial finance and industrial agriculture. Theirs is a vision for investing that puts soil fertility into return-on-investment calculations and serves people and place as much at it serves industry sectors and markets. Leading the charge is Woody Tasch-whose decades of work as a venture capitalist, foundation treasurer, and entrepreneur now shed new light on a truer, more beautiful, more prudent kind of fiduciary responsibility. He offers an alternative vision to the dusty old industrial concepts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when dollars, and the businesses they financed, lost their connection to place; slow money, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in the new economic, social, and environmental realities of the 21st century. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money is a call to action for designing capital markets built around not extraction and consumption but preservation and restoration. Is it a movement or is it an investment strategy? Yes.




Money


Book Description

Few economic phenomena provoke as much confusion as money. From the first measures of value and the physical coins that circulated at the dawn human civilization to the era of ‘virtual’ money transmitted through cyberspace, it is ubiquitous and hugely important, yet economists cannot even agree on what it is. In this pithy, accessible book, Geoffrey Ingham cuts through this tangled web of debate to bring rare clarity. Ingham begins by examining the fundamental debate over the nature of money: is it fundamentally a natural, ‘neutral’ measure of pre-existing value produced by ‘real’ economic forces? Or is it a socially produced and politically manipulated force that creates new value? He proceeds to trace the import of these competing views for how we understand our contemporary monetary systems and their practical and policy-related implications, from their role in financial crises to proposals for reform. Students of political economy, economic sociology and monetary economics will find this book an invaluable primer, as will general readers wishing to understand how money shapes their lives, from the cash in their pocket to the numbers on their computer screen.




The Production of Money


Book Description

What is money, where does it come from, and who controls it? In this accessible, brilliantly argued book, leading political economist Ann Pettifor explains in straightforward terms history’s most misunderstood invention: the money system. Pettifor argues that democracies can, and indeed must, reclaim control over money production and restrain the out-of-control finance sector so that it serves the interests of society, as well as the needs of the ecosystem. The Production of Money examines and assesses popular alternative debates on, and innovations in, money, such as “green QE” and “helicopter money.” She sets out the possibility of linking the money in our pockets (or on our smartphones) to the improvements we want to see in the world around us.




The Nature of Spectacle


Book Description

"A thoughtful treatise on how popular representations of nature, through entertainment and tourism, shape how we imagine environmental problems and their solutions"--Provided by publisher.




The Nature and Uses of Money and Mixed Currency


Book Description

Excerpt from The Nature and Uses of Money and Mixed Currency: With a History of the Wickaboag Bank N 0 person produces everything he wishes to consume. Even in savage life, one man can procure fish, another venison most advantageously, and they will accordingly wish to exchange pro ducts. This is called barter, and is the first and Simplest form of exchange. AS the civilized state appears, the necessity for an interchange of commodities is vastly increased. The hatter, tailor, shoe maker, farmer, and fisherman, all must exchange with each other, and traffic becomes one of the greatest departments of industry. But barter, under these circumstances, is a very inconvenient and clumsy mode of effecting the desired object. For example, the farmer proposes to exchange wheat for a hat; but the hatter, having already obtained all the wheat he wants, tells the farmer, that if he will procure him a table, he will give him a hat in exchange for it. The farmer now goes to the cabinet-maker and offers to exchange wheat for a table; but the cabinet-maker, already supplied with wheat, tells him if he will procure a pair of boots, he Will let him have a table. The farmer now goes to the bootmaker, who, we will suppose, is willing to take. Wheat, and the farmer gets the boots. With these he procures a table, with which, in turn, he gets the object he desired viz., a hat. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.




Modern Theories of Money


Book Description

'This is a timely book. Being on modern theories of money - essentially the study of traditions of endogenous money - it is a welcome contribution to current thinking on monetary policy. The modern central bank view on money is that the rate of interest should be manipulated by central banks to achieve an inflation target with the money supply being the "residual". Although money is in effect endogenous, there is no theory that explains its behaviour. Modern Theories of Money is a serious attempt to sharpen existing views on the issue and fill gaps in an admirable manner.' - Philip Arestis, University of Cambridge, UK and Levy Economics Institute, US This book unites diverse heterodox traditions in the study of endogenous money - which until now have been confined to their own academic quarters - and explores their similarities and differences from both sides of the Atlantic. Bringing together perspectives from post-Keynesians, Circuitists and the Dijon School, the book continues the tradition of Keynes's and Kalecki's analysis of a monetary production economy, emphasising the similarities between the various approaches, and expanding the analytical breadth of the theory of endogenous money. The authors open new avenues for monetary research in order to fuel a renewed interest in the nature and role of money in capitalist economies, which is, the authors argue, one of the most controversial, and therefore fascinating, areas of economics.




Modern Money Theory


Book Description

This second edition explores how money 'works' in the modern economy and synthesises the key principles of Modern Money Theory, exploring macro accounting, currency regimes and exchange rates in both the USA and developing nations.




What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?


Book Description

From Indian vultures to Chinese bees, Nature provides the 'natural services' that keep the economy going. From the recycling miracles in the soil; an army of predators ridding us of unwanted pests; an abundance of life creating a genetic codebook that underpins our food, pharmaceutical industries and much more, it has been estimated that these and other services are each year worth about double global GDP. Yet we take most of Nature's services for granted, imagining them free and limitless ... until they suddenly switch off. This is a book full of immediate, impactful stories, containing both warnings (such as in the tale of India's vultures, killed off by drugs given to cattle, leading to an epidemic of rabies) but also the positive (how birds protect fruit harvests, coral reefs protect coasts from storms and how the rainforests absorb billions of tonnes of carbon released from cars and power stations). Tony Juniper's book will change whole way you think about life, the planet and the economy