IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/reorpe/v52y2020i1p137-151.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Marx’s Theory of Money: A Reappraisal in the Light of Unconventional Monetary Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Maria N. Ivanova

Abstract

This paper analyzes key aspects of Marx’s theory of money in order to reassert its continued relevance for understanding monetary developments in contemporary capitalism. Unlike theorists who become preoccupied with particular functions and forms of money, Marx develops a comprehensive concept of money integrating its various functions and emphasizing the socio-economic basis of its existence. Money performs different functions including a measure of value, a means of purchase/exchange, a means of payment, and a means of hoarding, which are independent of money’s concrete forms. The functions of money as a means of purchase and means of payment relate to each other as money (income) and credit (money), which are fundamentally different. The quantity and availability of credit (money) may be influenced by the activities of the central bank and the private banking system. Credit (money), however, can only become money (income) if and when it enters the domain of social production as an embodiment of the value of social labor and social purchasing power. This inextricable link between money and social production sets natural limits to the ability of monetary policy to influence both monetary and non-monetary developments in contemporary capitalism. An analysis grounded in Marx’s theory of money can provide insights into a range of contemporary monetary phenomena including hoarding, the rush to liquidity during financial crises, the scramble for government debt as a source of ultimate liquidity, and the limits to conventional and unconventional monetary policy. JEL Classification: E4, E5, B51, E6

Suggested Citation

  • Maria N. Ivanova, 2020. "Marx’s Theory of Money: A Reappraisal in the Light of Unconventional Monetary Policy," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 52(1), pages 137-151, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:52:y:2020:i:1:p:137-151
    DOI: 10.1177/0486613419856727
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0486613419856727
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0486613419856727?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria N. Ivanova, 2018. "Quantitative Easing: A Postmortem," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3-4), pages 253-280, October.
    2. Christopher Martin & Costas Milas, 2012. "Quantitative easing: a sceptical survey," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 28(4), pages 750-764, WINTER.
    3. Joseph E. Gagnon, 2016. "Quantitative Easing: An Underappreciated Success," Policy Briefs PB16-4, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    4. Claudio Borio, 2000. "Market liquidity and stress: selected issues and policy implications," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, November.
    5. Maria N. Ivanova, 2017. "Profit growth in boom and bust: the Great Recession and the Great Depression in comparative perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 1-20.
    6. Robert J. Gordon, 2012. "Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds," NBER Working Papers 18315, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. J. M. Keynes, 1997. "The General Theory of Employment," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, vol. 5.
    8. Maria N Ivanova, 2019. "Inequality, financialization, and the US current account deficit," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 28(4), pages 707-724.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Desogus, Marco & Casu, Elisa, 2020. "On the Monetary Causes of Inequality: A Review of the Literature and an Alternate Way Forward," MPRA Paper 114362, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Otmar Issing, 2013. "A New Paradigm for Monetary Policy?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 273-288, June.
    2. Beck, Roland & Duca, Ioana A. & Stracca, Livio, 2019. "Medium term treatment and side effects of quantitative easing: international evidence," Working Paper Series 2229, European Central Bank.
    3. Maria N. Ivanova, 2017. "Profit growth in boom and bust: the Great Recession and the Great Depression in comparative perspective," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 26(1), pages 1-20.
    4. Antonin BERGEAUD & Gilbert Cette & Rémy Lecat, 2017. "What role did education, equipment age and technology play in 20th century productivity growth?," Rue de la Banque, Banque de France, issue 43, may..
    5. Kuosmanen, Natalia & Valmari, Nelli, 2023. "Renewal of Companies Through Product Switching," ETLA Working Papers 104, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    6. Basso, Henrique S. & Jimeno, Juan F., 2021. "From secular stagnation to robocalypse? Implications of demographic and technological changes," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 833-847.
    7. Özgür Orhangazi & A. Erinç Yeldan, 2021. "The Re‐making of the Turkish Crisis," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 52(3), pages 460-503, May.
    8. Cette, Gilbert & Corde, Simon & Lecat, Rémy, 2018. "Firm-level productivity dispersion and convergence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 76-78.
    9. Gabriele Fiorentini & Alessandro Galesi & Gabriel Pérez-Quirós & Enrique Sentana, 2018. "The rise and fall of the natural interest rate," Working Papers 1822, Banco de España.
    10. Gabriele Galati & Kostas Tsatsaronis, 2003. "The impact of the euro on Europe's financial markets," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(3), pages 165-222, August.
    11. Antonin Bergeaud & Gilbert Cette & Rémy Lecat, 2014. "Le produit intérieur brut par habitant sur longue période en France et dans les pays avancés : le rôle de la productivité et de l’emploi," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 474(1), pages 5-34.
    12. Inda Mulaahmetovic, 2022. "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Quantitative Easing Measures of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 12(3), pages 141-163.
    13. Abdoulaye Millogo, 2020. "Hysteresis Effects and Macroeconomics Gains from Unconventional Monetary Policies Stabilization," Cahiers de recherche 20-12, Departement d'économique de l'École de gestion à l'Université de Sherbrooke.
    14. Malmaeus, J. Mikael & Alfredsson, Eva C., 2017. "Potential Consequences on the Economy of Low or No Growth - Short and Long Term Perspectives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 57-64.
    15. İshak Demi̇r & Burak A. Eroğlu & Seçi̇l Yildirim‐Karaman, 2022. "Heterogeneous Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy on the Bond Yields across the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(5), pages 1425-1457, August.
    16. Aghion, Philippe & Akcigit, Ufuk & Howitt, Peter, 2014. "What Do We Learn From Schumpeterian Growth Theory?," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 515-563, Elsevier.
    17. Singh, Anuraag & Triulzi, Giorgio & Magee, Christopher L., 2021. "Technological improvement rate predictions for all technologies: Use of patent data and an extended domain description," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(9).
    18. Ryu, Doojin & Webb, Robert I. & Yu, Jinyoung, 2022. "Funding liquidity shocks and market liquidity providers," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB).
    19. IONESCU, Lucian C., 2014. "The Economy Of Indebtedness," Journal of Financial and Monetary Economics, Centre of Financial and Monetary Research "Victor Slavescu", vol. 1(1), pages 19-24.
    20. Eckhard Hein, 2016. "Secular stagnation or stagnation policy? Steindl after Summers," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 69(276), pages 3-47.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Marxist economics; monetary theory/policy; unconventional monetary policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:52:y:2020:i:1:p:137-151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.urpe.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.