As I work to integrate debt and money into center study I get to the point where these concepts need to be articulated more fundamentally, in terms of originary grammar. For Brett Scott, the issuance of currency involves making a promise to be redeemed—insofar as the promise is formalized and recorded, it can be distributed, and therefore become currency. The question then posed itself regarding the articulation of this way of originating money with the creation of money through the issuance of debt, which seems the opposite of promising (promising seems to be indebting oneself). Of course, both accounts might be true at different times—for that matter, there are probably several other ways in which money might be created—and I should eventually get to all of them. But they should be synthesized or at least made to overlap as much as possible, even if for no other reason as that such a procedure uncovers less obvious connections. And in this case it seems to me that Christine Desan’s account of money creation in medieval England might help out here, as Desan sees money as beginning with the issuance by the king of tokens certifying that the recipient has donated goods or services to the king before they were required to, to meet some exigency. In that case, the promise involved in the issuance of money acknowledges a prior payment of an ongoing debt to the center by one who has become in effect a privileged subject. Scott probably has more horizontal relations in mind, but even here I would say that promises always issue from an “always already” state of indebtedness constituting each member of the community’s possession of whatever they are able to promise. We always start with a debt to the center but it is also the case that the debt to the center always takes the form of an imperative issued by the center and, in fact, the broadest of imperatives, the imperative to respect and protect the originary distribution. But, then, it follows that the imperative from the center is necessarily divisible, and that currency marks obedience to a particular part of the imperative, with debt in that case extending the circle of the imperative’s “radiation” by including others less on the basis of loyalty and more bordering on coercion and the threat of expropriation.
Partitioning and Parceling the Imperative
Partitioning and Parceling the Imperative
Partitioning and Parceling the Imperative
As I work to integrate debt and money into center study I get to the point where these concepts need to be articulated more fundamentally, in terms of originary grammar. For Brett Scott, the issuance of currency involves making a promise to be redeemed—insofar as the promise is formalized and recorded, it can be distributed, and therefore become currency. The question then posed itself regarding the articulation of this way of originating money with the creation of money through the issuance of debt, which seems the opposite of promising (promising seems to be indebting oneself). Of course, both accounts might be true at different times—for that matter, there are probably several other ways in which money might be created—and I should eventually get to all of them. But they should be synthesized or at least made to overlap as much as possible, even if for no other reason as that such a procedure uncovers less obvious connections. And in this case it seems to me that Christine Desan’s account of money creation in medieval England might help out here, as Desan sees money as beginning with the issuance by the king of tokens certifying that the recipient has donated goods or services to the king before they were required to, to meet some exigency. In that case, the promise involved in the issuance of money acknowledges a prior payment of an ongoing debt to the center by one who has become in effect a privileged subject. Scott probably has more horizontal relations in mind, but even here I would say that promises always issue from an “always already” state of indebtedness constituting each member of the community’s possession of whatever they are able to promise. We always start with a debt to the center but it is also the case that the debt to the center always takes the form of an imperative issued by the center and, in fact, the broadest of imperatives, the imperative to respect and protect the originary distribution. But, then, it follows that the imperative from the center is necessarily divisible, and that currency marks obedience to a particular part of the imperative, with debt in that case extending the circle of the imperative’s “radiation” by including others less on the basis of loyalty and more bordering on coercion and the threat of expropriation.