Money and Calculation. Economic and Sociological Perspectives

Emotions, identity, values, happiness – all different aspects of life are englobed by a growing complex of calculative practices. Calculation, ubiquitous and multifarious, is driven not merely by an extension of the scope of exchange, but by a deeper urge towards generalized equalization and totalization. Money is only one, however important, instrument of calculation. As a unit of account and means of payment, it serves the purpose of exchange. Yet, money increasingly becomes itself object of exchange and calculation on financial markets that tend less to the production and exchange of actual goods, than to the elimination of all uncertainty by means of universal exchangeability. How is it that, in this overwhelming plethora of money and calculation, the economy seems to have lost its measure? The essays collected here investigate, from various viewpoints, how calculation and money, in their nature, relations and transformations, bear upon the meaning of measure in economic life.