The French Institutionalist Theory of Money: A Critical Review from the Inside

This critical survey presents and discusses the French Institutionalist Theory of Money (FITM), a stream of thought that developed from 1980 onwards and has been generating an original and dense series of works on money. An initial wave of studies published in the 1980s sparked debates that resulted from 1993 onwards, in a series of seminars that in turn gave rise to a series of collective books. They contain contributions by scholars from various disciplines. Some draw heavily on historical insights, while others accord a pivotal role to anthropology or philosophy or both these disciplines in varying degrees. According to FITM, money is a higher-order social relation whose complexity cannot be fully captured by any single-disciplinary approach: it is not only an institution, but also a total social fact. In order to identify the fundamental questions raised by FITM and its evolving research dynamics, this article examines the development of the theoretical constructs in the string of publications Then, it uncovers the three intellectual trajectories followed by the authors of FITM: contribution to heterodox economics; analytical accounts of situated real-world experiences; and theorization of money in a unified framework of the social sciences. It also delves into recent developments, which concern monetary plurality, the emergence of new currencies and issues concerning the commons, democracy and ecology. It then situates FITM within a broader intellectual environment and puts the focus on the movement's influence, both within economics and in the social sciences more broadly.