The aim of this course will be to elaborate a philosophy of economics that breaks with both the commitments of a range of economic positions – classical, neo-classical and a number of so-called ‘heterodox’ positions – and the philosophical commitments that they share.
Each part of the course is organised around a critical identification of one of the paralogisms that underlies mainstream economic thought: the paralogism of the totalisation of value, paralogism of exchangism, the paralogism of the real economy, and the paralogism of the free market.
This course will proceed against the background of a series of texts that address the elements of its construction. In particular, we will draw from works in philosophy (Kant, Nietzsche, Bergson, Deleuze, Derrida, Stiegler), anthropology (Mauss, Lévi-Strauss, Sahlins, Clastres) and psychoanalysis. This textual network will orient and motivate our consideration of texts from within the history of economics, from Smith to Marx and contemporary theories of money.
Part 1: Introduction. Against the totalisation of value.
Weeks 1 - 3
The first three lectures will be devoted to establishing the definition of key terms, and in particular value and price. Aside from providing a foundational split in the thought of economic activity, this distinction also grounds the distribution of temporal registers – the present and past for value, the future for price.
1.1 Introduction. Key terms, dominant paralogisms, central elements
1.2 Defining value
1.3 Defining price
Part 2. Memory and debt.
Weeks 4 - 6
The second part of the course will focus on establishing the essential connection between debt and memory, and to introduce the historical dimension into the analysis.
2.1 The topological hypothesis of two memories
2.2 The status of exchange in pre-State society
2.3 Social memory
Part 3: Money. Against the hypothesis of ‘money as veil’
Weeks 7 - 9
The third part of the course will be focused around the concept of money and the historical reality of the State, and in particular how the two intersect. These analyses will allow us to link together in adequate terms two central categories of the course: money and memory.
3.3 The pre-history of money
3.4 Taxation and the State
3.5 Money and memory
Part 4. Capitalism. Against the hypothesis of the free market.
Weeks 10 - 12
The final part of this course will lead us to the contemporary conjunction. Of central importance will be the erosion of State law and its various consequences for memory, money and social organisation. The course will conclude with a recapitulation of the elements of this heterodox philosophy of economics.
4.1 The capitalist market and its states.
4.2 Money in capitalism.
4.3 The bank. Conclusion: recapitulation of the elements