The historical context of the experience of money and the road less travelled: the history of economic thought, Dennis Robertson’s Money , the thing positioned and the positioned thing

Abstract In this article, I place Dennis Robertson’s popular book Money in the context of its time in order to make a simple point about the scope and limits of history of economic thought and social ontology. The argument is supported by a detailed appendix in three parts that discusses the history of coinage and banknotes, provides some context on the economy of the mid-1920s, and explores how money was spent, how credit was made available and how debt was viewed through social norms of the time. In the main article, based on discussion of the problem of attributing to the thing positioned features of the positioned thing, I argue that social ontology benefits from both history of economic thought and historical sociological considerations and foci.