What Do We Learn from Market Design? On the Moral Foundations of Repugnance

Abstract In this paper we try to show how the social and political acceptance of Roth, Ünver and Sönmez’s market design for kidney exchange provides some explanation of the rejection of market logic. We address three hypotheses generally cited as potential causes of the rejection of the market for certain goods: (I) the corrupting nature of … Continue reading What Do We Learn from Market Design? On the Moral Foundations of Repugnance

Money in the order of discourse: The symbolic function of money

Money symbolizes value, the sovereign, the people—in short, totality itself. But what is the role of this symbolization? Strictly speaking, the symbolic function of money is to quantify. Yet quantification is already riddled with philosophical problems. Therefore, this paper tries to demonstrate a Foucauldian problematization of the symbolic function of money, in terms of the power-knowledge relationship. Considering the symbolic function of money raises two kinds of issues. First, at the theoretical level, the issue of matching its (intensive) value and its (extensive) manifestation. And at the epistemological level, a problem of objectification of objectification, a self-referential problem of the truth value of value judgments (speculative bubble).