Introduction

Abstract

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the politics of money, presenting two twin insights. First, money is a foundational institution of democratic self-rule. The chapter explains that the book denotes this democratic aspiration by referring to money's role as “political currency.” To speak of money as “political currency” acts as a reminder of the political possibilities of money and the ways in which political communities not only lay claim to govern the money circulating in them but also rely on money to govern themselves more justly. Second, and closely related, most of the time money does not rise to the level of “political currency.” It all too easily can appear as naturalized or depoliticized. By reconstructing debates about the politics of money, the book not only recovers money as a neglected site of political thought and a potential institution of democratic self-rule but also offers an account of how the politics of money came to be eclipsed in the first place. It traces two parallel movements: the periodic reassertion of a political awareness of money especially at times of crisis; and a historical reconstruction of the thinkers and debates that contributed to the eclipse of the politics of money.