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  • Published: 24 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9781590517185
  • Imprint: Other Press
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $65.00
Categories:

The Money Plot

A History from Shells to Bullion to Bitcoin




Half fable, half manifesto, this brilliant new take on the ancient concept of cash lays bare its unparalleled capacity to empower, enchant, and control us.

Frederick Kaufman tackles the complex history of money, beginning with the earliest myths and wrapping up with Wall Street’s byzantine present-day doings. Along the way, he exposes a set of allegorical plots, stock characters, and stereotypical metaphors that have long been linked with money and commercial culture, from Melanesian trading rituals to the dogma of Medieval churchmen faced with global commerce, the rationales of Mercantilism and colonial expansion, and the U.S. dollar’s 1971 unpinning from gold.

The Money Plot offers a tool to see through the haze of modern banking and finance, demonstrating that the standard reasons given for economic inequality—the Neoliberal gospel of market forces—are, like dollars, euros, and yuan, contingent upon structures people have designed. It shines a light on the one percent’s efforts to contain a money culture that benefits them within boundaries they themselves are increasingly setting. And Kaufman warns that if we cannot recognize what is going on, we run the risk of becoming pawns and shells ourselves, of becoming other people’s money.

  • Published: 24 February 2021
  • ISBN: 9781590517185
  • Imprint: Other Press
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $65.00
Categories:

Praise for The Money Plot

Praise for Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food:   “[An] energetic, wide-ranging work of investigative journalism…this is neither dry argumentative soup nor antiglobalization polemic, and the villains aren’t black and white; Kaufman’s tone is subtly ironic without being snarky—a nice addition to Michael Pollan.” —Publishers Weekly   “A revealing view into commodity markets and food pricing.” —Kirkus Reviews   “Kaufman makes a convincing and terrifying case that the same merchant bankers who destroyed our housing market—and economy—five years ago are at it again. This time their target is the world’s food supply.” —Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland