Money – Interdisciplinary Perspectives
May 21, 2009
Money – Interdisciplinary Perspectives – Freie Universität Berlin, June 25-28, 2009
Purpose: There is a broad consensus in the social sciences that money is not well understood, neither in any one of the disciplines nor as the joint result of the division of labor between economics, sociology, political science, history, anthropology, geography, philosophy, and so on. Recently, there has been a revival of interest in monetary theory, not least because the impacts of globalizing markets and of new communication and information technologies have changed the forms of money and seem to have further enhanced the importance of money in everyday life. This renewed interest in money has led to significant contributions in various fields, but one still cannot escape the impression that no social science discipline on its own is sufficiently equipped to explain the basic workings of monetary systems, their rapid innovation and their effects on social, economic and political structures. This situation not only calls for interdisciplinary, synthetic efforts but also promises relevant results because innovative contributions have been combined with a new openness and propensity to look beyond disciplinary boundaries.
The workshop will assemble researchers who have not only produced significant contributions to the theory of money, but also have a manifest interest in interdisciplinary cooperation. The hope is that controversial positions can be discussed in an atmosphere of mutual respect and a common interest in advancing the theory of money.
Starting with a keynote opening address, the workshop will focus on the following issues in the theory of money:
1. The social construction and evolution of monetary systems: design or invisible hand
2. The monetary process: How do societies maintain the “working fiction of a monetary invariant”?
3. Monetary theory of credit vs. credit theory of money: Is the Schumpeterian alternative plausible?
4. Money and authority: Is all money a “creature of the state”? How creative are states in monetary matters?
5. Money and crisis: What do monetary crises reveal about the nature of money?
6. Globalization and the international monetary system: Is there a need and a possibility for supra-national controls?
Heiner Ganßmann is the organizer of this workshop. Visit the conference site for more information.
