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Monads in the Empire of Value
- Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2021
- pp. 509-526
- 10.1353/cap.2021.0011
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
In spite of their materialist aspirations, both classical and neoclassical economic theories rely on non-material notions of value to explain market activity. André Orléan calls this commitment of orthodox economics "the substance hypothesis." In this essay, I show how the substance hypothesis mirrors Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's account of monads, which he called the "true atoms of nature." I argue that value is the atom of economic nature in orthodox economic theories. Like monads, it is a fantasy. The atom of economic nature that governs our actual, material lives, I argue, is money.