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Money in an unequal world

University of Aberdeen, Scotland

Humanity is caught between the institutions of agrarian civilization and a machine revolution whose implications we barely understand. In consequence, the world is becoming rapidly more unequal as we grow closer together. As a result of digitalization, the dominant economic form of the 20th-century, state capitalism, is giving way to a new phase, virtual capitalism. The struggle for value on the internet is analysed with reference to the categories of classical political economy. The key to economic democracy is to focus on the money instruments themselves, which are changing in response to the repersonalization of economic life in a world of cheap information. The article reviews the evidence for such change and considers the future of money. If we are to displace the old regime of agrarian civilization, the middle-class revolution with which the modern age began needs to be revitalized.

Key Words: capitalism • civilization • democracy • digitalization • inequality • internet • money • revolution • state • virtual

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 1, No. 3, 307-330 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/14634990122228755


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