Money beyond the commodity–credit dichotomy: the labour of organization as the missing unity

The theory of money has long carried a dichotomy Schumpeter deemed insurmountable: every theory of money reduces, ultimately, to a commodity theory or a credit theory. The controversy between Lapavitsas and Ingham (Economy and Society, 2000–2006), and its prolongation in Modern Monetary Theory and neo-chartalism, reproduces that opposition. This article argues that both poles are forms of appearance of a content neither reproduces: money as the social form economizing the labour of indirectly organizing production among private, independent producers. Distinguishing, within socially necessary labour, a consumable labour from a labour of organization, it derives money’s genesis and follows its development—from money-commodity to unbacked sign—as a single historical necessity. The debate’s lost unity is the labour of organization borne within value.Working paper. Version submitted for peer review; not yet peer-reviewed.