Money as a Democratic Medium | The Public and its Money Problems

The title of this panel is a variation on John Dewey’s 1927 book “The Public and Its Problems” in order to direct attention to the political turmoil that is connected to the logic of capitalism. As it is less and less tenable for progressive analyses to evade questions of money and finance, the question is increasingly what forms such politicization should or can take. Among the more prominent perspectives to have emerged in recent years is a neo-chartalism that emphasizes the role of public authority in the production of money and that views the most troubling policies of the neoliberal era as resulting from a misunderstanding of the ontology of money (for instance, political anxiety around deficits is seen to derive from the failure to appreciate that money is an accounting convention rather than a metallic substance). This panel will offer a number of sympathetic but critical engagements with the chartalist provocation, following its lead in foregrounding the question of the relationship between money and the public while exploring this connection through a series of different lenses.

Roundtable

Martijn Konings - University of Sydney
Perry Mehrling - Boston University
Eli Cook - University of Haifa
Antara Haldar - University of Cambridge
Quinn Slobodian - Wellesley College