A Autonomização das Formas Verdadeiramente Sociais na Teoria de Marx: Comentários sobre o Dinheiro no Capitalismo Contemporâneo

If we adopt a dialectical (Hegelian) reading of Marx’s theory of money, we can see that money contains within it the contradiction of commodity itself (between use-value and value) and in so doing, it contains different strata of contradiction that logically and historically have come to the fore. In this process, the truly social forms (for example money – as opposed to commodity, means of circulation – as opposed to measure of value, inconvertible money – as opposed to commodity money, and so on) seem to be stronger than their counterparts (social forms) and, because of this, there is a movement towards an autonomization of these forms. In this sense, value becomes autonomous from use-value; as medium of circulation, the abstract that money represents becomes autonomous from the concrete that the measure of value requires; as medium of payment, money becomes autonomous from the commodity circulation that has produced it, and so on. This paper aims to show that these movements may be behind some of the contemporary phenomena we are currently observing in the sphere of capital circulation (for example, the inconvertible US dollar acting as universal money, the “financialisation” of the valorization process, the spilling over of monetary crisis, bubbles and crashes, etc). Recent literature dealing with some of these themes, such as, Moseley (2004, 2005); Foley (2005); Harvey (2006, 1982); Chesnais (2005, 2008), will also be discussed.