This implies that even in a non-monetary economy these features are
likely to exist within a certain sphere of activity, and that it is
therefore misleading to attribute them to money. By so doing, a
contrast within cultures is turned into a contrast between
cultures, thereby reinforcing the notion that money itself has the
power to transform the nature of social relationships.
This volume deals with the way in which money is symbolically
represented in a range of different cultures, from South and
South-east Asia, Africa and South America. It is also concerned
with the moral evaluation of monetary and commercial exchanges as
against exchanges of other kinds. The essays cast radical doubt on
many Western assumptions about money: that it is the acid which
corrodes community, depersonalises human relationships, and reduces
differences of quality to those of mere quantity; that it is the
instrument of man's freedom, and so on. Rather than supporting
the proposition that money produces easily specifiable changes in
world view, the emphasis here is on the way in which existing world
views and economic systems give rise to particular ways of
representing money. But this highly relativistic conclusion is
qualified once we shift the focus from money to the system of
exchange as a whole. One rather general pattern that then begins to
emerge is of two separate but related transactional orders, the
majority of systems making some ideological space for relatively
impersonal, competitive and individual acquisitive activity. This
implies that even in a non-monetary economy these features are
likely to exist within a certain sphere of activity, and that it is
therefore misleading to attribute them to money. By so doing, a
contrast within cultures is turned into a contrast between
cultures, thereby reinforcing the notion that money itself has the
power to transform the nature of social relationships.
Table of contents:
1. Introduction: money and the morality of exchange Jonathan Parry
and Maurice Bloch; 2. Misconceiving the grain heap: a critique of
the concept of the Indian jajmani system C. J. Fuller; 3. On the
moral perils of exchange Jonathan Parry; 4. Money, men and women R.
L. Stirrat; 5. Cooking money: gender and the symbolic
transformation of means of exchange in a Malay fishing community
Janet Carsten; 6. Drinking cash: the purification of money through
ceremonial exchange in Fiji C. Toren; 7. The symbolism of money in
Imerina Maurice Block; 8. Resistance to the present by the past:
mediums and money in Zimbabwe D. Lan; 9. Precious metals in the
Andean economy M. J. Sallnow; 10. The earth and the state: the
sources and meanings of money in Northern Potosi, Bolivia Olivia
Harris.
This collection is concerned with the symbolic representation of
money in different societies, and especially with the moral
evaluation of monetary and commercial exchanges of a different
kind. It focuses not on the problems of monetary theory which have
conventionally preoccupied the economist but on the different
cultural meanings surrounding monetary transactions.
1. Introduction: money and the morality of exchange Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch 2. Misconceiving the grain heap: a critique of the concept of the Indian jajmani system C. J. Fuller 3. On the moral perils of exchange Jonathan Parry 4. Money, men and women R. L. Stirrat 5. Cooking money: gender and the symbolic transformation of means of exchange in a Malay fishing community Janet Carsten 6. Drinking cash: the purification of money through ceremonial exchange in Fiji C. Toren 7. The symbolism of money in Imerina Maurice Block 8. Resistance to the present by the past: mediums and money in Zimbabwe D. Lan 9. Precious metals in the Andean economy M. J. Sallnow 10. The earth and the state: the sources and meanings of money in Northern Potosi, Bolivia Olivia Harris.
