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Money and its Economic and Social Functions: Simmel and European Monetary Integration
Author(s) -
Backhaus Jürgen G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1999.tb03408.x
Subject(s) - mainstream economics , context (archaeology) , mainstream , positive economics , economics , perspective (graphical) , politics , phenomenon , monetary system , schools of economic thought , neoclassical economics , sociology , epistemology , monetary policy , keynesian economics , political science , applied economics , law , philosophy , history , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science
A bstract This essay tries to put Georg Simmels The Philosophy of Money into the context of current monetary discussions in economics. Part I looks at the contribution of Georg Simmel in context and offers remarks about the changing structure of economics as a discipline composed of many different subdisciplines. It is argued that Simmel is able to transcend subdisciplinary borders, to great benefit for today's scholar. Part III explains Heinsohn and Steiger's recent contribution to monetary economics in terms of transactions and property rights; although the contribution has been made more in the context of post‐Keynesian economics, this is the only way to comprehend and integrate it into the mainstream of scholarly discourse. This examination shows that Simmels approach, transgressing interdisciplinary borders, has merits even today. Part IV looks at the perplexing phenomenon of European monetary integration with a similar interdisciplinary perspective in mind. In this case, it is not monetary economics but constitutional political economy which is the unifying concept to explain the peculiar features of European monetary integration.