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August 30, 2009, 8:40 pm

Coin of Praise

By SIMON CRITCHLEY

It is a peculiar fact that the severe economic turmoil of the past year has for the most part not led people to ask the most

fundamental question about the root of all this angst: What is money?

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Money is, of course, many things: the coins and notes rattling in our pockets, as well as the piles of real and virtual stuff lying in

banks, or the smart money that tends towards disappearance and increasing immateriality, being shuffled electronically along the

vectors of the financial networks.

That might serve as an initial, empirical description, but what does money really mean? What is the idea of money that we hold in

our minds as we accept it, exchange it, squander it or save it? The core of money is trust and promise, I promise to pay the bearer

on demand the sum of on the British pound; the In God We Trust of the U.S. dollar; the BCE-ECB-EZB-EKT-EKP of the

European Central Bank that runs like a Franco-Anglo-Germano-Greco-Finnish cipher across the top of every Euro note.

Its not that we revere the things that money can buy. Rather, we venerate the money that enables us to buy those

things.

In other words, the legitimacy of money is based on a sovereign act, or a sovereign guarantee that the money is good, that it is not

counterfeit. Money has a promissory structure, with a strangely circular logic: money promises that the money is good. The

acceptance of the promise is the approval of a specific monetary ethos. We all agree that the money is worth in the best of

circumstances more than the paper on which it is printed. To buy and sell in the U.S. dollar, or any other currency, is to trust

that each bill is making a promise that it can keep.

This ethos, this circular money-promising-that-the-money-is-good, is underwritten by sovereign power. It is worth recalling that

gold coins called sovereigns were first minted in England under Henry VII in 1489 and production continues to this day. It is

essential that we believe in this power, that the sovereign power of the bank inspires belief, that the Fed has cred, as it were.Credit can only operate on the basis of credence and credibility, of an act of fidelity and faith (fides), of con-fid-ence. As historians

of language have shown, there is a strong etymological link between ideas of belief, faith and forms of economic exchange. The

goddess Fides or trust was sometimes depicted on the verso of Roman coins. In Fed We Trust, as the title of David Wessels

new book has it.

There is a theological core to money based on an act of faith, of belief. One can even speak of a sort of monetary civil religion or

currency patriotism. This is particularly evident in attitudes in the U.S. to the dollar, particularly to the sheer material quality of the

bill. It can also be found in the U.K.s opposition to the Euro and to the strange cultural need for money marked with the Queens

head, underwritten by the power of the sovereign, who is also lest one forget the head of the established church.

Plato defines a simulacrum as something that materializes an absence, an image for something that doesnt exist in reality, forexample the god Poseidon or Bob the Builder. Such is money, in my view. In the absence of any gold standard (but ask yourself,

how real is the value of gold? Is it not simply yellowish metal?), money is only sustained through an act of faith, belief, promise and

trust in sovereign power.

To push this a little further, we might say that in the seemingly godless world of global finance capitalism, money is the only thing in

which we really must have faith. Money is the one, true God in which we all believe. It is this faith that we celebrate in our desire

for commodities, in the kind of fetishistic control that they seem to have over us. Its not so much that we revere the things that

money can buy. Rather, we venerate the money that enables us to buy those things. In the alluring display of shiny brands that

cover the marketplace, it is not so much branded objects that we desire, but rather those objects insofar as they incarnate a

quantifiable sum of money.

To wear a brand is to display the money that was able to buy it. With us, it is not so much that the money-changers have

desecrated the temple, but that the only temples where we can worship are places where money changes hands in some perverse

parody of a religious service. This is the strange mass that we celebrate in the cathedral-like malls that litter the land.

It is an understandable misunderstanding of capitalism to declare that it is a materialism that consists of a voracious desire for things.

I would argue that we love the money that enables us to buy those things for it reaffirms our faith and restores the only theological

basis we have for our trust in the world. Money is our metaphysics. In that God we trust. And when trust breaks down, as it has

done so dramatically in the last year, then people experience something close to a crisis of faith.

In response to this crisis, the only political response (by Obama-Geithner-Summers over here and Brown-Merkel-Sarkozy over

there) is the attempt to restore faith, to shore up the credit systems by making governments the bank of last resort. Sadly or

happily for the politicians people have short memories and their momentary crisis of faith is washed away in the waters of

forgetfulness and overcome by a relentless will to believe.

Of course, as ever, Shakespeare elucidated this powerfully. In Timon of Athens, the protagonist speaks of money, in the form of

gold, as Thou visible God. Fascinatingly, Timon goes on, That soldrest close impossibilities/And makst them kiss. In other


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words, there is nothing that money cannot solder together. But this can be linked to another phrase from the same play: Thou

common whore of mankind. Money, we might say, is both the visible God and the common whore.

As a learned philosopher once remarked, money is the pimp between need and object, making available all objects and

objectifying all beings, especially human beings. In a society like ours, where money is the one true God, everything is for sale and

everyone is a prostitute insofar as value can be ultimately determined in financial terms.

Of course, some readers may object that my approach is overly philosophical and doesnt really seem to help if youve lost your

house and medical insurance. True enough! But the curious thing about money is how something so real can at the same time be so

illusory.

Simon Critchley is chair of philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the author of several books, including

his most recent, The Book of Dead Philosophers.

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From 1 to 25 of 151 Comments

1 23 ... 7Next

1. 1. August 30, 2009 9:27 pmLink

I wouldnt say that money is the pimp between need and object but rather that money is itself the need, for many. The

object we need is itself money and we dont know what we need it for, only that we need it. Supposedly for food and

shelter, but we want much more than that (though we know not what). It is itself the object of desire, for many, rather than a

means. An interesting discussion on how should we relate to money:

http://www.pandalous.com/topic/money_a_necessary_evil

David

2. 2. August 30, 2009 9:36 pmLink

This is a terrific piece all currencies are indeed faith-based, particularly in the absence of a gold standard. But as

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Critchley so ably points out, this is in fact no different from the illusory nature of the world in general. What we think of as

reality is but a fantastic illusion

http://whoistheabsurdman.blogspot.com/2009/07/embracing-abyss.html

Rick Bomstein

3. 3. August 30, 2009 10:16 pm Link

Great piece of insight. This is why Native Americans in general do not buy into the values of this culture. we are nursed from

childhood on the value of virtue not coins. Yellow Hair (Cusrer) -was after the rock that drove white man crazygold Wewere more enamored at the magic and power of Paha Sapa (Black Hills) which by the way has still not been sold for money

to the U. S.

Thanks again for this article.

Understanding israel

4. 4. August 31, 2009 12:04 amLink

What is learned more convincingly than by loss? Values and meaningfulness appear with suprising clarity to those who reflect

on lifes circumstances. Truth and wisdom can then be carved into ones self and are available for the remainder of life.

Sometimes opportunities for clarity come to individuals, but other times, it seems the opportunity is more universal, as it may

be now in America and around the world. Who will gain clarity, and who will simply bridge the time to sameness in thefuture?

Thank you for highlighting the opportunity this time offers to look individually and collectively at what really matters.

Cheryl Kennedy

5. 5. August 31, 2009 2:07 amLink

This thesis is so wrong. Money is simply a means to facilitate barter. While its true we must have faith in our means of

exchange, the means isnt money its banks, credit card companies & government regulators in whom we trust.

Its been years since I have handled substantial sums of money I pay my bills electronically or on the Internets & I shop

with my debit card. As for wearing my money on my sleeve, I dont have any clothes with anybody elses name on them(okay, a lovely collection of T-shirts Obama, Kerry & Bradley) , I keep forgetting the makes of my utilitarian, good-gas-

mileage cars. I do live in a mighty fine house, but I made sure to buy in a neighborhood that didnt boast about being

exclusive. Im hardly unique.

Im aware there are people who worship money I suppose theyre modern-day Calvinists, but you really have to hang

out in places like the Upper East Side & Palm Beach to find concentrations of such airheads. The rest of us have real lives

where the bank is a convenience, not a place of worship.

The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com

Marie Burns6. 6. August 31, 2009 3:18 amLink

Money is the root of all evil.

Youve no doubt heard this countless times, and just as often promoted as being a Bible quote. Of course, many of you

know this is incorrect, with the actual quote being, The love of money is the root of all evil.

Money is just a tool, and it is a tool that without which one cannot survive. It would be best to just accept this as such,

because after all, who is going to change it?

But the LOVE of money? When one loves money, one will always want more. And you know what? If having as much

money as possible is your overriding goal in life, you really dont have to be all that intelligent, just very cunning.

And when such people find a way to conspire with government so they can have even more, the eventual result is that

government will have less to help people who, for whatever legitimate reason, are poor rather than rich. The rich have a(mostly unspoken) justification for such a state of affairs: God wants it to be this way because if He didnt, it wouldnt.

Ah, there it is, the subconscious equivalence of money and God. And because the love of money is fear based, there can

never be enough, and such people are thereby condemned to never know happiness.

And those who dont love money will probably never be wealthy because they have other priorities, and therefore have a


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better chance to be happy than the person who loves money.

But then there is the problem that one can become so poor, through no fault of their own, that they cant survive. The

(mostly unspoken) attitude of the one who loves money re. this circumstance is that the poor deserve to die because they are

unproductive.

This is why the love of money is the root of all evil.

Captain Ronnel

7. 7. August 31, 2009 3:24 amLink

and since good old Henry VII we have been blessed by the dictatorial control not faith of those who hold and

manipulate the ether bearing wallet. Prior to the wonderful revelation of invisible value, folks might just have had value based

on their character and trustworthiness. Now we have a globe being twisted by the caprice of a limited few whose values

seem a tad off center from what one might call healthy living in each of our blinks of an on on this warming globe. It is so

refreshing to have philosophical thought verifying our state of being.

It aint what it used to be, but itll do rings so clearly in the article.

Robert Harris

8. 8. August 31, 2009 4:36 amLink

You know things are really bad when youve lost your illusions(money). I thought this blog was supposed to help us forget

about our troubles. Illusions are being lost at a precipitous rate in Detroit, where unemployment is fast approaching 30percent.

Martin Yanosek

9. 9. August 31, 2009 5:56 amLink

Everything is faith-based.

Without faith, a person cant even be an atheist!

luigi

10. 10. August 31, 2009 6:12 amLink

Im sure many folks without a job and/or health insurance will find this very comforting and provocative.

Kate

11. 11. August 31, 2009 6:15 amLink

The problem with money is that we believe it to be a store of value, but it is actually a medium of exchange. We possess the

money we hold, in the same way we possess the section of road we are driving on. You own your car, house, business, etc,

but not the roads connecting them. Money is a similar medium. It is a drawing right on the communitys productivity, for

which we exchange our surplus resources.

Believing money is a store of value encourages people to hoard it and cause excess supplies to form, above the productive

capacity of the economy. Since capital is subject to the laws of supply and demand, with the lender as supply and theborrower as demand, this surplus needs demand in order to maintain value, so it gets loaned out to those unlikely to pay it

back, the government becomes borrower of last resort and the financial industry creates enormous transactional bubbles to

keep it afloat.

The reason we have a central bank is because politicians would be inclined to inflate the supply of money to pay for the

programs they promise. Bankers like the value of the money to be stable, but they are inclined to expand credit, to increase

profits. The collapse of bad credit causes deflation. We need to understand that money and credit are not stores of value,

but a medium for it.

If people understood money constituted a form of public commons, than they would be far more reluctant to drain value out

of their social networks and environment to put in a bank in the first place. We all like having roads, but there is littleinclination to pave more than we need. In this situation, the same would apply to monetizing our lives. Other avenues of trust

and reciprocation would have the space to develop, which would strengthen communities and their relationship to the

environment. Money is a powerful tool of society, but it cannot be allowed to define every relationship, or those who

manage it will control all of society.


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John Merryman

12. 12. August 31, 2009 6:24 amLink

Oh come on.

As someone who studied both Economics and Philosophy I think you are getting a little carried away. Moneys primary

function is to act as a store of value, someone who has performed a valuable service cannot consume the fruits of that labor

all at once and money means they can defer consumption.

The problem comes when too many future promises are made which then devalues those promises. Yes there is faithinvolved but it is faith that the powers that be act responsibly.

You are right about gold though. People fetishise it but it is only a metal and only has value above that of its elemental

properties by convention.

David

13. 13. August 31, 2009 6:36 amLink

Strictly speaking, money is a matter of delusion. Its at once the object of our fears (not having enough) and our hopes

(someday ill have it all, or at least most of it) .

A revised definition of money is:Quantified existential angst used to exchange objects and experiences based on their momentary perceived value.

james

14. 14. August 31, 2009 7:17 amLink

Gold is itself a commodity item. The people who say what is it good for? are perhaps stuck in the 1700s, when it was only

a decorative metal; but its conductivity and heat properties make it a very valuable commodity in industry.

BenK

15. 15. August 31, 2009 7:30 amLink

The author addresses money as fiat currency only. The phrase that money is backed by the full faith and credit of -insertSovereign Nation here- does not apply with GOLD. Gold has no counterparty risk. Gold needs no one to vouch for its

worth. I could take a gold coin from any nation and from any time period and it still has value. I could take it to any coin

shop and exchange it for the melt value of gold.

All FIAT currencies are faith based. And all fiat currencies collapse. There is not a single fiat currency in the history of the

world that has lasted over 100 years without reversion to a gold-based system. The US dollar and the international

currencies will all collapse eventually. History says they will.

Joe

16. 16. August 31, 2009 7:36 amLink

Just an addendum. The author makes an example of British sovereigns. Well The sun has set on the British Empire but

guess what? A British sovereign from 1920 still trades for about 240 US dollars which is a small premium on its gold

content. You cannot say the same for a piece of paper marked 1920 US Federal Reserve Note which is only worth the

paper it is printed on.

Joe

17. 17. August 31, 2009 7:39 amLink

More disturbing is the question what is wealth? How is wealth created? Money is a simulacrum or place-holder

representing potential value the wealth of goods or services I could buy with that money. But how is wealth created?

When we dug ore out of the ground and smelted it into steel, we created wealth. Selling shares a microsecond before someother guy does, thus taking money out of his pocket and putting it into mine is not creating wealth.

Our country veered drunkenly into the dangerous illusion that wealth could be created out of nothing but hope, mutual self-

delusion, and taking it out of some other guys pocket. What do we create of value in this country? How do we create


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wealth?

If that question is not sufficiently worrying, think then that we have built a system where about one in seven of every dollars

of wealth we do create we turn over to the health crisis intervention system we have invented for the purpose of transferring

the wealth of the oldest generation over to the insurance, drug, and hospital companies rather than the next younger

generation, as they do in Europe.

So at the same time as we are running out of ways to make money, we have joined in the delusion that the best use for our

money is to give it to insurance companies.

Easy come, easy go, eh?

PJTramdack

18. 18. August 31, 2009 7:45 amLink

It would be an error to think that, Money is the one, true God in which we all believe. rather, money only has value when

mankind believes in the one true God. Let me prove it to you: The only value money has is in ones belief that it can be

exchanged for a mutually agreed amount of something else. Hence it is belief that makes money valuable. Mankinds ONLY

valuable currency therefore is belief, not money. Confusing the two has been a fundamental error. If belief is the realm of

God, money will become more worthless with every passing day until mankind restores his power of belief. This will only be

achieved through believing in and obeying the one true God.

William Clarle

19. 19. August 31, 2009 7:56 amLink

Well, money is a convenient tool of trade- far easier than loading up a camel with wares and waiting months or bartering at

the village well. However, last year taught a bitter truth when assets dived in value so I think wealth is an illusion in the long

run- but a clever one.

grace mcd

20. 20. August 31, 2009 7:56 amLink

Once faith in a national government crumbles so does the value of its money, witness the Balkans, Germany during twowars, numerous banana republics. etc

Whilst the greenback continues to be considered valuable it is teetering.. A few more mistakes by the politically powerful,

bad legislation, another ill conceived war, and it too may hit the ash heap of history

dr. o

dr. o

21. 21. August 31, 2009 8:01 amLink

It is a nice piece except that it solely focuses on money as a means of reliable, trustworthy exchange and consumption. While

paying close attention to the historical etymology and some of the philosophical basis of the terms used, it utterly andcompletely brackets the historically material rise of the generalized need for money something for which the vast majority

of human beings across the past had no need. There was this guy, Karl Marx was I think his name, who wrote a great

deal about the intertwined social histories, philosophical legitimations and physical alienations of people from the material and

cultural means of reproducing themselves and the concomitant rise in the power of money as a means of consumption, but

also as a form of capital a relation dependent on ever-greater expanded reproduction (growth). I think he had some

philosophical training, too.

Alan

22. 22. August 31, 2009 8:02 amLink

I would say your approach is *underly* philosophical. Why glorify your tedious, ill-written money-is-the-root-of-all-evil

*cant* with the glorious word philosophy?

Sere

23. 23. August 31, 2009 8:10 amLink


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Previous Post Another Bit of Burton By DICK CAVETT Next Post There Goes the Meritocracy By ERIC ETHERIDGE

Money is nothing more than concretized energy. Yes, we may need faith that it is somehow backed up by the state. But

we go too far when that faith in money becomes worship of profit. And that brings worship of profit, as the central socio-

religious object, to the level of cultural and economic fundamentalism within our western civilization. It becomes somewhat

infantile as we become good Ferengi [from Star Trek fame] with our 214 rules of acquisition. It is a great distortion of faith

in the Good the Beautiful and the True, substituting faith in false idols that clouds the true object of faith in the divinity of the

human condition. We have lost our true foundation of being human.

jdbovi

24. 24. August 31, 2009 8:22 amLink

if i understand you correctly you are saying the only thing between us and despair and the bottomless pit is money. this

cannot be good.

harvey osterhoudt

25. 25. August 31, 2009 8:26 amLink

Though not a fan of Ayn Rands, her description of money as a symbol of the value of ones work is what rings the most

true. Thats the reason why we have so much trouble with overpaid executives (it is hard for us to believe that anyone does

so much work as to make 100s of thousands of dollars worth of work every hour) while the troubles of the laid off,

uninsured and poor dont cause as much outrage (it is hard for us to believe that it is possible to have so little money while

working hard)

DKR

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coin of praise - nytimes

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