Clipped Coins and Civilizing Money: George Caffentzis on John Locke and David Hume

Clipped Coins, Abused Words and Civil Government: John Locke’s Philosophy of Money
and Civilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project and the Scottish Enlightenment

a presentation with author George Caffentzis

joined by Peter Linebaugh and Carl Wennerlind

Clipped Coins situates John Locke’s philosophy of knowledge and his political theory within his engagement in British monetary debates of the 17th and 18th century. Anchored in extensive archival research, George Caffentzis offers the most expansive reading of Locke’s economic thought to date, contextualizing it within expanding capitalist accumulation on a world scale money becoming the universal medium of exchange. Updated with a new introduction by Paul Rekret, a new foreword by Harry Cleaver and new material by the author, Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government continues to make a significant intervention in contemporary debates around the history of capitalism, colonialism and philosophy.

George Caffentzis makes both an intervention in the field of monetary philosophy and into Marxist conceptions of the relation between philosophy and capitalist development. He vividly charts the ways in which Hume’s philosophy directly informed the project of ‘civilizing’ the people of the Scottish Highlands and pacifying the English proletariat in response to the revolts of both groups at the heart of the empire. Built on careful historical and philosophical detective work, Civilizing Money offers a stimulating and radical political reading of the ways in which Hume’s fundamental philosophical claims performed concrete political functions.

GEORGE CAFFENTZIS is a co-founder of the Midnight Notes Collective and coordinator of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA). Caffentzis was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine for over 30 years before retirement.

PETER LINEBAUGH is a child of empire, schooled in London, Cattaraugus (NY), Washington, D.C., Bonn, and Karachi. He went to Swarthmore College during the civil rights days. Besides authoring many books, he has taught at Harvard University and Attica Penitentiary, at New York University and the Federal Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. He used to edit Zerowork and was a member of the Midnight Notes Collective.

CARL WENNERLIND is professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia University and the author of Casualties  of Credit. Carl has also co-authored a monograph with Margaret Schabas entitled A Philosopher’s Economist: Hume and the  Rise of Capitalism.

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