What Does Money Tell Us?

Abstract

The book entitled Money talks. Explaining how money really works and edited by Nina Bandelj, Frederick F. Wherry and Viviana Zelizer is a collection of 14 articles classed around 5 parts : over and above the fungibility of money (Part I), beyond the special funds (part II) monetary creation (Part III) contested money (Part IV) and future money (Part V), this book is also an anniversary book. It celebrates the 20th birthday of the publication of Viviana Zelizer's work, The social Meaning of MOney. All the articles in it were discussed and presented during a conference on September 12, 2014 on the pertinence of the thesis of the sociology of money by Viviana Zelizer. In her book published in 1994, Viviana Zelizer criticized economist and sociologist approaches to money. It is impossible then to understand the scientific, political and social stakes of this anniversary book without placing on the one hand, the criticisms of Viviana Zelizer in their intellectual context; in other words the arrival in the United States of a new economic sociology, and without remembering on the other hand that by highlighting the role of social standards and emotions which determine the use of money it must be shown that the economic agent is not rational and that market economy in fact is not or not only, the nuance is important, governed by perfectly rational actors, which challenges its efficiency. This is what this review would point out before presenting an outline of the contents of each chapter and concluding with a few critical comments.