Monetary economics Books, bestsellers and new releases

Book SynopsisIn Marco Polo was in China Hans Ulrich Vogel offers an innovative look at the highly complex topics of currencies, salt production and taxes, commercial levies and other kinds of revenue as well as the administrative geography of the Mongol Yuan empire. The author’s rigorous analysis of Chinese sources and all the important Marco Polo manuscripts as well as his thorough scrutiny of Japanese, Chinese and Western scholarship show that the fascinating information contained in Le devisament dou monde agrees almost pefectly with that we find in Chinese sources, the latter only available long after Marco Polo’s stay in China. Hence, the author concludes that, despite the doubts that have been raised, the Venetian was indeed in Khubilai Khan’s realm.Trade Review'...an entirely new picture of the Chinese economic system with incredible insights into every-day life. I strongly recommend anyone to go to all the bother of reading the entire monograph.' Ursula Kampmann, Coins Weekly 'Unlike his predecessors in the West who mainly relied on European sources, or those in China who relied on Chinese sources, Vogel’s book is a masterwork using primary sources and secondary literature of different origins and cultural backgrounds. (...) Vogel, instead, extensively examines research on these topics published in Chinese, thereby shedding light on the findings of Chinese scholars in these areas, particularly for Western scholars who cannot read Chinese. The author offers a most thorough discussion of the pros and cons of Marco Polo’s authenticity, and so provides a convincing defence. Vogel’s work greatly enhances our comprehension of the fiscal situation of the Yuan. It does in fact reveal new data, provide new lenses and document new methodological approaches to historical perspectives. This excellent book is to be warmly commended. It offers a wonderful resource for anyone wishing to study Marco Polo and Chinese economic history.' Na Chang, Reviews in History (2014) 1667 (DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/1667) 'Vogel does indeed deliver in abundance what his title promises, that is, decisive and irrefutable evidence that Polo’s time in China was more or less what he said it was.(...) It is all the more important, then, that his title not be taken as limiting the scope of work simply to Polo’s travels. Anyone interested in the Mongol-era China’s economy, finance and administration will find this book an invaluable treasure trove of information. The work on currency equivalencies, for example, will undoubtedly prove foundational for much future research on the fiscal systems of the Mongol empire and late imperial Eurasia generally.' Christopher P. Atwood (Indiana University, USA), Inner Asia 17 (2015), 351–357Table of ContentsPreface from Mark Elvin Préface de Philippe Ménard Preface from the Author Acknowledgments Transliteration and Conventions I. Introduction II. Paper Money in Yuan China III. Cowry Monies Circulating in Yunnan and Southeast Asia IV. Salt Production and Salt Monies in Yunnan and Tebet V. Production, Revenue and Trade of Salt in Changlu and Lianghuai VI. Tax Revenue of Hangzhou and its Territory VII. Administrative-geographical Divisions in Yuan China VIII. Conclusions Appendices Bibliography Index

Brill Marxist Monetary Theory: Collected Papers

Out of stock

Book SynopsisThe collected papers of Costas Lapavitsas are a pathway to Marxist monetary theory, a field that continues to attract strong interest. The papers range far and wide, including markets and money, finance and the enterprise, power and money, the financialisation of capitalism, finance and profit, even money as art. Despite its breadth, the collection remains highly coherent. Money and finance are pre-eminent, even dominant, features of contemporary capitalism. Lapavitsas has been one of the first political economists to notice their ascendancy and to devote his research to it. He offers a resolutely Marxist perspective on contemporary capitalism while remaining conversant with the history of political economy, sensitive to mainstream economic theory, and fully aware of the empirical reality of financialisation.Trade Review"The Wolfson Lecture Theatre (Senate House) was full and lively as Costas led off the afternoon by putting Marx’s analysis of ‘the universal equivalent’ to work in explaining money today in the current conjuncture and its role in overthrowing capitalism. His emphasis was more on the forms than the functions money has taken: commodity money (gold), simple fiat money, credit money, central bank fiat money and electronic monies. Costas foregrounded four ‘stylised facts’ of our current system: first, legal inconvertibility after 1971–1973; second, the quantitative dominance of credit money within the sphere of domestic money; third, the qualitative significance of legal tender as central bank created fiat money; and fourth, the pre-eminence of inconvertible legal tender from a small number of central banks forming international money. Furthermore, Costas made a significant comparison between Bitcoin and gold. [...] As Costas points out in this new book: ‘There is an ideology of money in capitalist society that is similar to religion in both its falseness and necessity.’ I have a firm opinion that everyone on the Left needs to better acknowledge the worth of understanding money as a concept and set of processes, in order to better appreciate money as a weapon of control and to actively resist the power of money to substitute for substantive democracy and genuine governance. Internationally, money is remarkably potent. In his talk, Costas emphasised it as ‘a lever for hierarchy among states’; our global history cannot be told without reference to the British pound, the US dollar and, more recently the €uro — as shown in the sorry story of Syriza’s reign in Greece. So, too, it becomes ‘a mechanism to entrench commercial advantage’ and ‘exercises power over entire societies through fear and identity’." – Anitra Nelson, Progress in Political EconomyTable of ContentsPreface 1. Money as Art: The Form, the Material, and Capital PART I: THE FORMS, THE FUNCTIONS AND THE QUANTITY OF MONEY 2. The Theory of Credit Money: A Structural Analysis 3. The Banking School and the Monetary Thought of Karl Marx 4. The Classical Adjustment Mechanism of International Balances: Marx’s Critique 5. Money and the Analysis of Capitalism: The Significance of Commodity Money PART II: CREDIT, INTEREST-BEARING CAPITAL, AND THE HOARDING OF MONEY 6. Two Approaches to the Concept of Interest-Bearing Capital 7. On Marx’s Analysis of Money Hoarding in the Turnover of Capital PART III: THE ORIGIN OF MONEY AND THE NATURE OF COMMODITIES 8. Commodities and Gifts: Why Commodities Represent More than Market Relations 9. The Emergence of Money in Commodity Exchange, or Money as Monopolist of the Ability to Buy 10. The Social Relations of Money as Universal Equivalent: A Response to Ingham PART IV: THE COMPLEX REALITY OF CONTEMPORARY MONEY 11. Relations of Power and Trust in Contemporary Finance 12. The Monetary Basis of Financialised Capitalism Bibliography Index