Money Wisdom #296

It has been said that the divine principle, after having created the elements of the world, withdrew and left them to the free play of their own powers, so that we can now speak of an objective cosmos, subject to its own relations and laws; and further, that the divine power chose this independence of the cosmic process as the most expedient means of accomplishing its own purposes for the world. In the same way, we invest economic objects with a quantity of value as if it were an inherent quality, and then hand them over to the process of exchange, to a mechanism determined by those quantities, to an impersonal confrontation between values, from which they return mulitplied and more enjoyable to the final purpose, which was also the point of their origin: subjective experience. This is the basis and source of that valuation which finds its expression in economic life and whose consequences represent the meaning of money.

Georg Simmel The Philosophy of Money (1907 [1990]) p.78-79

Money Wisdom #295

The form taken by value in exchange places value in a category beyond the strict meaning of subjectivity and objectivity. In exchange, value becomes supra-subjective, supra-individual, yet without becoming an objective quality and reality of the things themselves. Value appears as the demand of the object, transcending its immanent reality, to be exchanged and acquired only for another corresponding value. The Ego, even though it is the universal source of values, becomes so far removed from the objects that they can measure their significance by each other without referring in each case to the Ego. But this real relationship between values, which is executed and supported by exchange, evidently has its purpose in eventual subjective enjoyment, that is, in the fact that we receive a greater quantity and intensity of values than would be possible without exchange transactions.

Georg Simmel The Philosophy of Money (1907 [1990]) p.78

Money Wisdom #294

… the path to that ultimate reunification of ego and body is not a dissolution but a strengthening of the human ego. The human ego would have to become strong enough to die; and strong enough to set aside guilt. Archaic consciousness was strong enough to recognize a debt of guilt; Christian consciousness was strong enough to recognize that the debt is so great that only God can redeem it; modern secular Faustian man is strong enough to live with irredeemable damnation; full psychoanalytical consciousness would be strong enough to cancel the debt by deriving it from infantile fantasy.

Norman O Brown Life Against Death (1959) p.292 quoted in
Nigel Dodd Nietzsche's Money in Journal of Classical Sociology 13(1) (2012) p.63 (link)

Money Wisdom #293

Benjamin likens capitalism not simply to religion per se, but more specifically, to a cult: capitalism is a ‘purely cultic religion’, he says, ‘perhaps the most extreme that ever existed’ (Benjamin 1996a: 288). A cult is an emaciated religion: it lacks a proper theology, cannot answer questions of ultimate value, and offers only superficial comforts. A true theology would promise redemption: forgiveness, an encounter with God, resolution of life’s underlying tensions. A cult offers only distractions: it is closed and inward looking, everything is drawn back into its nexus of value – ‘things have a meaning only in their relationship to the cult’ (Benjamin 1996a: 288) – while every action and every deed is assigned a rating in its shallow moral economy (Hamacher 2002: 87). A cult offers ritual, but not transcendence. Capitalism is such a cult.

Nigel Dodd Nietzsche's Money in Journal of Classical Sociology 13(1) p. 55 (2012) (link)

Its been a long time, long time.

Well, not that long.

A quick miscellaneous post to prove I'm still alive and kicking. I started a ramble on Nietzsche's Money by Nigel Dodd, Freud: The Reluctant Philosopher by Albert Tauber, and Money Burning; and basically its turned - or rather, is turning - into something else. Its looking like a (faux) academic piece explaining (I use the word loosely) my position on money, its metaphysics, its hypermetaphysics and its corporeal reality. All linked in through the theme of Money Burning.

I've done so many abandoned essays of late. Every time I start a free-form ramble I can never finish it. Frustrating as that is for me - an no doubt very tiresome for you to read about - I'm taking it as a sign that I do in fact have something to say. And I think saying it, might be helpful to me. So I'm ploughing on. And keeping my self-imposed deadlines a secret from you.

But I will offer you this. I've pulled out a fair few quotes - some of which will be in the piece, others of which won't, and no doubt there''ll be many more along the way - so, in the meantime I'll stick them up on here as money wisdom quotes. If they appear a bit random and unrelated you'll know why. At least they'll keep the blog pulsing along while I try and get my thoughts and feelings into a form of words.

X

Money Wisdom #292

"For Peggy Lucas and I, then, in the long dry grass in the heatwave of 1976, 'cunt' was our currency. It was a word whose shared taboo bonded our friendship. The odd part is that, after so many years, I forget who had 'brought' the word to school that day." (p. 7)

Emma L.E. Rees The Vagina: A Literary and Cultural History (2013) p.6

Money Wisdom #291

"Words are like monies: they have a proper value before they express all the kinds of value."

Antoine de Rivarol Des Traductions (1906) p.125

quoted in Marc Shell Money and the Mind in Modern Language Notes (1980) p.526