"...many accounts of colonization note the imposition of sovereign currency and tax requirement upon occupied territory. Infusing a colony with new currency achieves many tasks. Ideologically speaking, it circulates the image of the ruling center among the populace. New subjects are gradually conditioned to associate such images the means of payment and acquisition of the basics of life. They are reminded of the lord by whose mark it is they buy and sell. Figuratively speaking, they must prostrate themselves before the image in order to prolong physical life, accepting its terms and regime of value. The imposition also inserts the particular weights and measures established by the power, permeating exchanges relations with certain denominations of wealth. This provides new sovereignly determined methods of categorizing and evaluating reality. Most centrally, perhaps, establishing a new monetary space draws all participants into relations of obligation with the colonizing center. They must now render back to the authority a portion of these circulating tokens, reclaimed in taxes."
Devin Singh Divine Currency (2018) p.183