Colloquium on monetary analysis
Pierre Mendès-France University, Grenoble, France | 15-16 April '10
FEPS supports the initiative of the French [Association Charles Gide] of a colloquium on monetary analysis. This conference is indeed in line with FEPS research aiming at redefining the theoretical basis of a social democratic conceptual corpus in the field of political economy.
The colloquium
In Marchands, salariat et capitalistes (1980), Carlo Benetti and Jean Cartelier propose a monetary analysis of market economies, namely, an analysis wherein money is an integral part of the economic process. As unit of account, money allows economic magnitudes to be expressed. As means of payment (expressed in terms of a unit of account), money allows the transactions involved by such magnitudes to be executed. Unit of account and means of payment are no longer some “functions” added as an afterthought, but the basic properties of any market economy. Such monetary analysis stands in sharp contrast with the usual approach in economics, wherein goods, rather than money, are seen as the point to start any economic analysis. This is the result of an (often implicit) assumption, namely, the nomenclature.
Nonetheless, monetary analysis is shared by only a minority of economists, so that it remains too much unexplored. At the same time, the specific contribution of Marchands, salariat et capitalistes to monetary analysis has not yet been discussed thoroughly, thirty years after its publication. This colloquium aims at examining monetary analysis in general, while being interested in Marchands, salariat et capitalistes in particular. Papers might address the following topics:
- The nature and role of money, the opposition between the “real” and “monetary” spheres.
- Credit, finance, the banking system and the financial markets.
- Dependence and the wage relationship.
- Value, pricing and distribution within a monetary economy.
- Equilibrium, disequilibrium, circulation, crisis and viability.
- The philosophical implications of monetary analysis.
