Clipped Coins Abused Words And Civil Government

"Caffentzis grounds this ampliative examination of Locke's philosophy of economics, language, and history in the political crisis that resulted when monetary pirates "clipped" the silver currency of 17th-century England. His interventionist treatment undoes virtually all standard critical works on Locke."--BOOK JACKET.

A classic examination of John Locke's philosophy of economics, language and history.

This is the first volume in a career defining trilogy of works by George Caffentzis. The book 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, Caffentzis offers the most expansive reading of Locke's work to date, contextualising it within the expansion of capitalist accumulation on a world scale and the universality of money as a medium of exchange.Updated with a new author's preface, a foreword by Peter Linebaugh and an editorial introduction by Paul Rekret, Clipped Coins, Abused Words & Civil Government promises to make a significant intervention in contemporary debates around the history of capitalism, colonialism, and philosophy.

If we see ourselves as Earth, rather than Earth as existing for us, our perspective is transformed. A variety of religious, philosophical, cultural, and political self-perceptions that dominate our sense of human identity are deeply challenged by this shift in perspective. John Locke's doctrine of Earth as human 'property' has been central to current presuppositions about our selves: justified on the grounds of our possessing unique, divinely bestowed, rational abilities. But today, the effectsof that doctrine on Earth's resource base and on its other-than-human creatures directly challenge such assumptions. At the same time contemporary scientific findings about the evolution of Earthly life demonstrate that while we belong to Earth and nowhere else, Earth does not belong to us. Exploring this role reversal raises fundamental questions about current theological, philosophical, scientific, and economic presuppositions that underpin the 'business as usual' viewpoint and human-centeredaims of contemporary policies and lifestyles. It takes us beyond hierarchical Christian and philosophical doctrines toward a deeper, Earth-focused and peace-based understanding of what it means to be human today.

This book describes the recent Scottish independence referendum as the latest incarnation of a contest between two times on one hand, an ideally continuous time beyond determination underpinning financial sovereignty, on the other the interruptions to this ideal continuity inherent in human action.

A study of how people understood and used money from 1630 to 1800 in England. Deborah Valenze shows how money became involved in relations between people in ways that moved beyond what we understand as its purely economic functions.

A reassessment of the historic relation between money and the state through the lens of early modern English literature, Coinage and State Formation examines the political implications of the monetary form in light of material and visual properties of coins as well as the persistence of both intrinsic and extrinsic theories of value.