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From Croesus to Nakamoto, how currencies emerge:
between practice and theory

Deadline for submitting articles: May 30, 2025. Coordination: Pierre ALARY and Jérôme BLANC

There is a vast panorama of work on money in the social sciences. They focus on the many facets of money, but pay little attention to the conditions of its emergence. From a multi-disciplinary perspective, this call for papers seeks to shed light on the emergence and conditions of existence of currencies and the mechanisms associated with them. Contributions should take the form of case studies (from very old to contemporary) and/or contribute to generalization, based on economic but also anthropological, historical, legal, political or sociological approaches.

From work on money to the question of the emergence of currencies

The social significance of currencies is irreducible to market relationships: “different social contexts require different currencies” (Orléan, 2002, p. 33). Contemporary social sciences, including institutionalist approaches, have focused their attention on: the articulation of sovereignty, legitimacy, debt and trust (Aglietta & Orléan, 1995; 1998); monetary sovereignty and the differentiated political configurations of money (Théret & Cuillerai, forthcoming); the construction of monetary orders articulating social compromises and actor autonomy (Bloch & Parry, 1989; Crump, 1981; Hogendorn & Johnson, 1986; Zelizer, 1994); links with transformative monetary projects aiming, for some, at forms of emancipation (Barinaga, 2024; Caliskan, 2020; Desan, 2017; Diniz & alii, 2024; Fama & Musolino, 2020; Feinig, 2022; Fare, 2025). Increasing emphasis is being placed on the plurality of goals coupled with a wide diversity of monetary forms and issuers (Blanc, 2000; Blanc & Théret,2025; Gómez, 2019; Kuroda, 2020) revealed by currency crises (Théret, 2007). In other words, analyses postulating the uniqueness of money and the homogeneity of its manifestations do not echo this “Cambrian explosion in payments” observed by Maurer (2017). It is against this backdrop that this call solicits works about the specific sequence that is the birth of a currency, on an empirical level by drawing on case studies, but also from an epistemological perspective by questioning theoretical constructs of currency genesis.

On an empirical level: cases of currency emergence

The call covers all forms of currency, all historical periods (pre-antique, antique, feudal, contemporary) and all cultural areas, whatever the organizations that conceive and implement them is (a state or several states, as in the case of the euro; private entities including banks, firms or citizens’ associations, etc.). In particular, the call concerns electronic forms of money (certain cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currencies, etc.) as well as electronic means of circulation (mobile currencies, electronic wallets, etc.) and so-called alternative currencies (Blanc, 2018). Responses may take the form of monographs.

The process of creating a currency, as an infrastructure of a socio-technical nature, requires a priori work on three levels. The first is political: it concerns the political foundations of the creation of a currency and the way it affects the monetary compromise, i.e. who is entitled to issue and to use the currency. The cases of assignats (Sicard, 2000), bitcoin (Lakomski-Laguerre & Desmedt, 2015) or palmas (Rigo & França Filho, 2017) result from very different political projects. The second level focuses on the process of defining the unit of account; on the rules for issuing means of payment (by credit, by spending, by gift...); on the rules for withdrawing them (via taxation, for example...); finally, to avoid counterfeiting (Coativy, 2020) and abusive payments, on the technologies for materializing means of payment and making payments. The last level eventually focuses on the way in which users are led to receive and use means of payment. Constraint articulate with freedom of choice, giving rise to competition and complementarity. The latter influence the scope and dynamics of monetary usage (Blanc, 2017).

From an epistemological perspective: the genesis of currencies

The barter fable stems from approaches that reify money, the seeds of which are very old (Codere, 1968; Moreau, 1969), developed in the classical period, deepened by Jevons, reworked by Menger and taken up again in the search-theoretic models of money of the 1990s. The fable persists as an unproven truth, and still permeates common representations and those of certain economists (Servet, 1994; Graeber, 2011). Critical analyses of these orthodox approaches are of interest in this call for papers, as are critical analyses of heterodox positions based on other conceptions of the genesis of currencies. Chartalist approaches to money and their contemporary followers in the form of the Modern Money Theory (MMT) emphasize the state origin of money and its political dimension (Knapp, 1905; Tymoigne & Wray, 2014). Post-Keynesian approaches emphasize the role of banks and credit in its emergence (Rossi & Ponsot, 2009; Lavoie, 2022). These two approaches converge in certain respects. Other, Marxist, currents emphasize the structuring combination of financial power and state power in the construction of monetary systems (Moseley, 2005; Lapavitsas, 2016). Finally, the institutionalist approaches mentioned above propose a renewal of the theory of the emergence of currencies (Orléan, 2013).

In this context, the aim is to examine the way in which these theories think about the emergence of currencies.

Calendar

Deadline for submitting articles: May 30, 2025

Projected publication: 2026

Articles should be sent by e-mail, with the subject line: "CFP emergence of currencies", to the following addresses:

revue.regulation@mshparisnord.fr

pierre.alary@univ-lille.fr

jerome.blanc@sciencespo-lyon.fr

Authors are asked to follow the instructions carefully, including the editorial recommendations (formats and styles), details of which can be found at: https://0-journals-openedition-org.catalogue.libraries.london.ac.uk/regulation/1701

Bibliographie

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Aglietta M. & A. Orléan (ed.) (1998), La monnaie souveraine. Paris, Odile Jacob.

Barinaga Martín E. (2024), Remaking Money for a Sustainable Future: Money Commons, Bristol, Bristol University Press.

Blanc J. (2000), Les Monnaies parallèles : unité et diversité du fait monétaire, Paris, L’Harmattan.

Blanc J. (2017), “Unpacking monetary complementarity and competition : a conceptual framework”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 41, no 1, p. 239-257.

Blanc J. (2018), Les Monnaies alternatives, Paris, La Découverte.

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