(OPE-L) Monetary economics

From: glevy@PRATT.EDU
Date: Thu Jul 15 2004 - 14:45:38 EDT


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Monetary economics
From:    "Jurriaan Bendien" <andromeda246@hetnet.nl>
Date:    Tue, July 13, 2004 1:16 pm
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Although I haven't been able to study these issues about money in depth as
I would like, I might pass on some useful sites for references on the role
of money which I found on a query surfing the net, which may be useful to
interested Marxian economists:

http://www.economics.ltsn.ac.uk/books/MonetaryEconomics.htm#0333725441
http://www.consult.hyperion.co.uk/PubWebFiles/DigMon03/FutureofMoney.pdf
http://dismalscience.narod.ru/Ec_fin.htm
http://www.umass.edu/peri/

Monetary economics in the Marxian tradition was dealt with by Suzanne de
Brunhoff, Duncan Foley, Makoto Itoh/Costas Lapavitsas, and Laurence
Harris. I personally don't think a "commodity theory of money" can be
credibly sustained these days, other than as a special theory, or with
many qualifications. Particularly in a contemporary setting, monetary
phenomena obviously cannot really be understood separately from the supply
of credit. More than ever before the monetary system has become a way of
asserting claims on the social surplus product. I think though one of the
best ways to study the economic role of money, though, is to study what
happens to exchange relations in the case when a monetary regime breaks
down, or a currency is debased or destabilised. In that case, we are
pretty soon back with a Marxian-type view of the essence of money.

A very succinct, readable Marxian article on contemporary monetarist
ideologies which I found useful as a student was by Ernest Mandel, "World
crisis and the monetarist answer", in Karel Jansen (ed), Monetarism,
economic crisis and the Third World. London: Frank Cass, 1983. This book
also has some other useful articles.

Jurriaan


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