An Anthropology of Money

Money: A Critical Introduction shows how our present monetary system was imposed by elites and how they benefit from it. The book poses the question: how, by looking at different forms of money, can we appreciate that they have different effects? The authors demonstrate how modern money requires perpetual growth, an increase in inequality, environmental devastation, increasing commoditization, and, consequently, the perpetual consumption of evermore stuff. But these are not intrinsic features of money, but, rather, of debt money. This text shows that, through studying money in other cultures, we can have money that better serves the broader goals of society.