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Since the start of this blog, Planet Earth orbited the centre of its solar system twice already. This post shall function as a first retrospective of the compendium of topics covered and the journey taken so far. [1]
In the blog’s prologue and first post, it introduces power dynamics back to the production of economic knowledge and attempts to bring some sense of order to money and finance. Power structures may initially prohibit the modification of economic knowledge by denouncing fresh insights as not scientific but will not in themselves preclude the emergence of the need to review previous assumptions and theorems:
#1 The Order of Money and Finance [Oct-2022]
The following cascade introduces the three main theories of banking, a critical appraisal and a description of the process of government bond emission. This section brings light to the different ways money creation can be conceptualised, since to understand banking is a prerequisite to understand money:
#2 The Financial Intermediation Theory of Banking [Nov-2022]
#3 The Fractional Reserve Theory of Banking [Dec-2022]
#4 The Credit Creation Theory of Banking [Jan-2023]
#5 Critical Appraisal of the Theories of Banking [Feb-2023]
#6 Government bond emission as a form of money creation [Mar-2023]
Acknowledging the role of the state, central banks and monetary circuits in the money creation process gives the necessary institutional context.
When the process of money creation remains rather obscure in public discourses and deliberations on policies, the power of imagination in the economic sphere may be constraint:
#7 Critique of Economic Imaginative Power [Apr-2023]
The essence heretofore is that money is political — and not just a neutral commodity as widely perceived. Not only is bringing the political to economics necessary but also to understand the historical development of the previously introduced theories of banking:
#8 The Currency vs. Banking School Controversy [May-2023]
It has this far been established that the money creation process developed as a hybrid system. The monetary order is interdependent with political disputes and the configurations of political economies over time.
In the following three posts, the key characteristics and functions of money are being put in a broader context as to how money, credit and other monetary substitutes can be comprehended as part of a continuum of liquidity. What counts as money involves certain political power to determine the exchange rate value that can be claimed by certain economic agents in order to upgrade derivatives of credit to instantly accessible forms of money (i.e. current account deposits or even cash money):
#9 What is Money? [Jun-2023]
#10 A Political Theory of Money [Jul-2023 - work in progress]
#11 The Currency of Politics [Aug-2023 - work in progress]
The origin stories of money have usually quasi-mythological qualities, however, in the following this is questioned and confronted with the empirical facts developed mainly in other social sciences outside the realm of the economics discipline:
#12 On the Origin of Money [Sep-2023 - work in progress]
#13 Evolution of Monetary Practice [Part I] / [Oct-2023]
#14 Evolution of Monetary Practice [Part II] / [Nov-2023 - work in progress]
#15 Evolution of Monetary Practice [Part III] / [Dec-2023 - work in progress]
#16 Evolution of Monetary Practice [Part IV] / [Jan-2024 - work in progress]
Moving on to a more macroeconomic layer again, the following reflections concern Sovereign Indebtedness and Public Wealth as well as Private Wealth:
#17 Reflections on Sovereign Indebtedness [Feb-2024]
#18 Reflections on Public Wealth [Mar-2024 - work in progress]
#19 Reflections on Private Wealth [Apr-2024 - work in progress]
Leveraging on the posts #9-11, money can be moreover understood as a legal claim:
#20 Money as "legally enforced debt" [May-2024 - work in progress]
The last major theme deals with the austerity programmes pursued in recent decades and whether or not their impact on political sovereignty can be considered a positive one:
#21 Austerity & Household Prioritisations [Jun-2024]
#22 Reflections on Political Sovereignty [Jul-2024 - work in progress]
#23 Back to the Basics: ‘commodity paradigm’ vs. ‘monetary analysis’ [Aug-2024]
#24 Back to the Basics: European Austerity Revisited [Sep-2024]
Source:
[1] Barta, A. (2024) ‘Archive’, Looking Glass, [online] available at: <https://alexanderbarta.substack.com/archive>