Tag Archives: money

Thomas Piketty: “Take a serious interest in money… Those who have a lot of it never fail to defend their interests.”

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

These are Thomas Piketty’s last words in his ground-shaking Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The Economic Sociology and Political Economy global community proudly realizes their prescriptive meaning: “All social scientists, all journalists and commentators, all activists in the unions and in politics of … Continue reading →

Posted in Oleg Komlik | Tagged academia, democracy, media, money, public sociology, Thomas ‪Piketty‬, wealth | Leave a comment

Money is a mode of governance in a material world of capitalism

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

Money travels the modern world in disguise. It looks like a convention of human exchange – a commodity like gold or a medium like language. But its history reveals that money is a very different matter. It is an institution … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged capitalism, credit, debt, economic history, monetary system, money, state, United Kingdom | 1 Comment

What is money? Can we grasp the current state of the economy as a crisis of money itself?

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Oleg Komlik

The latest crisis has incited substantial conversation about debt, banking, financialization, and the commodification of everyday life. All these issues are inherently related to money. But what exactly is money? Where does it come from? Who does make our money … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged banking, capitalism, credit, crisis, debt, Economic Sociology, economics, money, valuation | 2 Comments

“Debt: Ethics, the Environment and the Economy”: the concept of indebtedness in its various senses and perspectives

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

From personal ‪‎finance‬ and consumer spending to ballooning national expenditures on warfare and social ‪welfare‬, debt is fundamental to the dynamics of global capitalism. This timely and broad volume, adited by Peter Y. Paik and Merry Wiesner-Hanks (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged capitalism, debt, Economic Sociology, environment, ethics, finance, money | Leave a comment

The history of money and its “divine” metamorphosis in the 20th century

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

A noted cultural anthropologist Professor Jack Weatherford observed in his fascinating The History of Money: “In the 20th century, we saw money turn rapidly from paper into plastic and then into mere electronic blips generated in computers, transferred over telephone … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged banking, credit, economic anthropology, economic history, finance, money, policy | 4 Comments

“Crisis, Value & Hope: Rethinking the Economy” — Current Anthropology special issue

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

“Crisis, value, and hope are three concepts whose intersection and mutual constitution open the door for a rethinking of the nature of economic life away from abstract models divorced from the everyday realities of ordinary people, the inadequacies of which … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged anthropology, credit, crisis, debt, financialization, money, valuation | Leave a comment

Constructing Markets for Credit Cards in Postcommunist Countries and demolishing myths about markets, money and globalization

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

In countries without a history of economic stability, how can banks decide who should be given a credit card? How do markets convince people to use cards, make their transactions visible to authorities, assume the potential risk of fraud, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged consumption, credit cards, globalization, market evolution, money, Post-communist countries | Leave a comment

The Bank of England’s “‪‎Money‬ Creation in the Modern ‪‎Economy‬” erodes the mainstream ‪economics‬ and ‪‎finance‬ theory

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

Money creation in practice differs from some popular misconceptions — banks do not act simply as intermediaries, lending out deposits that savers place with them, and nor do they ‘multiply up’ central bank money to create new loans and deposits. … Continue reading →

Posted in Papers | Tagged banking system, central banking, credit, economics, monetary system, money | Leave a comment

What ‪Money‬ Wants: An ‪Economy‬ of Desire

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Oleg Komlik

What in everyday life is an obvious truth, namely, that in some sense or another, people want money— is basically unthinkable in economic terms. Herein lies the starting point for the main argument of What ‪Money‬ Wants: An ‪Economy‬ of … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged consumption, economics, Georg Simmel, Karl Marx, Max Weber, money, sociology of money, Thorstein Veblen | 1 Comment

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of The World

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Oleg Komlik

“The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World” is Harvard professor Niall Ferguson’s an (4 hours) television documentary, based on his famous book. Ferguson follows the money to tell the human story behind the evolution of finance, from … Continue reading →

Posted in Video | Tagged economic history, finance, money | Leave a comment

DEBT: The First 5,000 Years

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Oleg Komlik

Recently, we got used to see David Graeber on TV, as one of the unofficial leaders of the Occupy movement; so what could be a better occasion to feature his unique book Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber, LSE professor … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged credit, debt, economic history, law, money, religion | Leave a comment

Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Oleg Komlik

Over the past decades, economic sociology has been revealing how culture shapes economic life, turning a fascinating research field into a flourishing and increasingly influential discipline. Among the few who have played the key role in this development was Viviana Zelizer, … Continue reading →