Anti-Auzan: the Critique of a Social Philosophy. Part 1

Abstract

The paper provides an answer to the question why the new institutional economics (NIE) ignores the institution of money, despite the fact that this institution is a central one in the capitalist economy. The fact is that NIE, continuing the traditions of classical political economy and then neoclassical economics, aims at legitimizing the monetary social order, in which a significant part of the money supply is issued by private banks when giving out loans. The monetary social order appeared first in England as a result of the “Glorious revolution” of 1688, which resulted in subordination of the state to the bourgeoisie. Money thus becomes the main source of power, and the economic theory taught in universities is directed precisely at concealing this. For the first time, money as a social institution was consistently considered in the institutional economics of John Commons, and NIE, having emasculated its basic concepts, continues, as a university academic discipline, the ideological cover-up of the monetary social order.