The

The Hello and welcome to behind the news. My name is Doug Henwood.

A slight, though I hope forgivable, departure from Orthodoxy today, three guests, though in the traditional two segments.

J.W. Mason and Arjun Jidef will explain why they're against money, and Moira Weigle, will explain

why people hate theory. First, money and its problems. Money is everywhere, but it's not an easy

thing to understand.

My late Uncle Ben, who had a sixth grade education, liked to say of life, it's all money-making,

which is hard to argue with. On the other hand, the economics trade, which you might think would

concur, mainly views money as unimportant. J.W. Mason, whom I've known for about 30 years as Josh, and Arjun

Jidef, are just out with a book called Against Money. It takes on the economic orthodoxy that money

is unimportant, neutral in the jargon of economics, arguing instead that it shapes our world,

and while intensely coercive, also hides deep networks of collaboration.

Josh teaches economics at John Day College of the City University of New York.

Arjun teaches at Azeem Premju, University in Bangalur, India.

A conventional view in economics going back a couple of centuries is that money is neutral.

The real world of consumption,

interest, labor, and production drive things, and the effects of money are trivial.

Problem occurs to me as I ask the question, what exactly do we mean by money? A $20 bill,

my checking balance, CD I keep alongside my checking account, shares of ExxonMobil.

Now, all that aside, though, what does it mean to say money is neutral? And why isn't it?

And why does that matter? The first problem is the one that you just flagged right at the beginning,

which is the ambiguity about what money actually is. And I think, you know, this has always been

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