The Culture of Money &the Morality of Exchangethe Morality of Exchange

Heonik Kwon(University of Edinburgh)

Money in Anthropology

• Premodern versus modern society• Stateless vs state society• Community vs Society (F. Tonnies)• Stone-age economics (M. Sahlins)• Stone-age economics (M. Sahlins)• Gift economy vs commodity economy• Moneyless society vs monetary

economy

Kula ring

Argonauts in the Pacific

Solomon Islands

Gift?

Two views of Kula

• Malinowski: Kula ring as network of gift exchange

• Mauss: PNG shells as another form of moneymoney

• Gift economy versus money economy, or money in the gift

Money?

Malinowski

Mauss

The Gift of the Magi

Gift & Money

• Money in the gift & the gift in money (O’Henry)

• The spirit of exchange (Mauss)• Inalienability • Inalienability • Embeddedness• Total social fact• Parts and whole

Parts and Whole• How different is anthropology from

economics in approaching economy?• How different is economy in

anthropology from that in economics?anthropology from that in economics?• Economics and kinship• Economics and religion• Economics and politics• Embeddedness of economics in

society (and culture)

Max Weber (1864-1920)Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of

Capitalism

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) Philosophy of Money

Weber

• Ghost in the spirit of capitalism:

“The tradition of medieval monastic asceticism prowls the culture of modern capitalist economic order.”capitalist economic order.”

Simmel

Money in society:

“[Modern] money is a pure instrument of human relations and freedom.”

Money beyond society:Money beyond society:

“[Modern money], by virtue of its perfect mobility, forms the bond that combines that combines the largest extension of the economic sphere with the growing independence of persons.”

Monetary exchange promotes the parallel process of previously independent communities becoming mutually dependent and dependent mutually dependent and dependent persons becoming independent from traditional communal bondage.

J. Parry and M. Bloch, Money and the Morality of Exchange (1989)

Two sides of the coin: State

Seal of Authority

Two sides of the coin: Market

Trust of the Value

Money’s two sides & the polarization of modern ideas

• State & Markets• Political authority & Exchange value• Politics & Economy• Sovereignty & Universality• Sovereignty & Universality• Keynesians & Monetarists (Keith Hart)• Statist side & Pro-market side• German & Anglo-saxon• Socialism & the free market ideology

The end of the Cold War and Money’s pursuit of “absolute

freedom”

Ethnography of the money world

• Once again the question of embeddedness (of money in society)

• Mauss’ “total social fact”• Mauss’ “total social fact”

• Money in kinship, money in religion, and money in political life

Chicago Mercantile Exchange after the Cold War

Vietnam after the Cold War

• “War is the most prodigal of all human activities.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

• “There is no enmity in cemeteries.” A Vietnamese proverb.

Civil War and the politics of death

Ancestor worship after the Cold War

Domestic ancestral shrine –Kinship and Solidarity

External shrine for ghosts –Anonymity & Hospitality

Money for anonymous ghosts

The gift of money

Dollar votive money

History of war, politics of memory and the morality of commemoration

The spirit of money and the ethics of memory

Money, culture and history

• Weber and the cultural history of capitalism

• Simmel and the instrumentality of modern moneymodern money

• Mauss and the morality of exchange• Money for the living and money for the

dead• Two sides of the coin

The Art of Money

The Comedy of Value

J. Boggs

• Because money and art have no intrinsic value, they rely on our personal and collective trust to sustain the value we assign them. Our relationship to art we assign them. Our relationship to art is subject to the same societal conditioning as our relationship to money.

Money?

Art?

Art?

Gift?

Money? or Gift?

Gift? or Money?

Gift?

Afghan currency

Useless money?

International aid:Gift?

Or Money?