Money as arbitrary fiction can only represent real social labour

Evidence

If money is to perform its functions effectively, Marx argues, it must be replaced by mere symbols of itself (coins, tokens, paper currency, credit), which lead it to be considered as a mere symbol, an ‘arbitrary fiction’ sanctioned by ‘the universal consent of mankind.’ Yet it is through these ‘arbitrary fictions’ that the whole world of social labour, of production and hard daily work, get represented. In the absence of social labour, all money would be worthless. But it is only through money that social labour can be represented at all. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 612

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the Marxian paradox: money is an ‘arbitrary fiction’ that alone can represent social labour.
• XREF: connects to: Money is an impersonal standard that negates the content of goods — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 65; Market relations are real yet structurally unable to express the underlying social labor; Commodity fetishism presents social labour relations as properties of things — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 410 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Commodity fetishism presents social labour relations as properties of things #expands (0.88) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 410
• Market relations are real yet structurally unable to express the underlying social labor #corroborates (0.85)
• Capitalist exchange abstracts objects from the real labor that produced them #corroborates (0.85) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 95
• Money is an impersonal standard that negates the content of goods #expands (0.82) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 65
• Capitalist economic laws are both real and socially necessary illusions #complicates (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1343
• Money emerges as allegory, an abstraction that succeeds only by marking its own failure. #expands (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 521
• Money’s instability created postmodernity’s crisis of representation #complicates (0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 1883