The Self-Referentiality of Value: Money and Capital as Pure Desire

Relying on Georg Simmel’s Philosophy of Money, this project intends to develop the idea that money – in particular when the latter attains the form of capital – is an embodiment of pure desire. Contrary to what it may frst appear, and also to what is commonly stated with regard to the first chapters of the book, this does not imply that Simmel’s account of money relies on a merely subjective theory of value, as in orthodox economics. The idea of money (and of capital) as pure desire, it will be argued, is and can only be based rather on a theory of value that is at once subjective, intersubjective and objective.

The seeming subjective character of Simmel’s theory of economic value is grounded on the fact that he does initially understand the formation of value in subjective terms. In this frst, subjective form or dimension of economic exchange, value has its origin entirely in the subject’s desire, namely in her willingness to perform some kind of sacrifce or renunciation in exchange for an object of desire. Exchange amounts then to an equivalence between a desire (from the part of a subject) and a sacrifice (which this subject is willing to perform). Thus Simmel’s conception of economic exchange and value do not apply only to social relations, but also more generally to every relation where there is desire, including relationships between a subject and natural or divine worlds. Only the discussion does not end at this point, and the framework for understanding economic value, exchange, and hence money receives further development. In a second form or dimension of economic exchange, represented by the mutual exchange of a sacrifce for an object of desire, value is determined by the  encounter between a desire (and the sacrifce the subject is willing to offer for it) and a sacrifce another subject is willing to perform (and the corresponding desire). This implies an equivalence between a desire (of the frst subject) and a sacrifce (of the other subject) and a reciprocal equivalence between a desire (of this other subject) and a sacrifce (of the frst subject). Hence, one may speak in this case of economic exchange in its intersubjective form, inasmuch as there is a reciprocal and reverse equivalence between desire and sacrifce. Finally, in the mutual exchange of a sacrifce for an object of desire that is itself another subject’s desire – which, in its turn, also consists in a sacrifce for an object of desire that amounts to the frst subject’s desire –, value assumes its objective form. Here, economic value is determined by the equivalence between, on the one hand, a desire (and the sacrifce one subject is willing to do for it) which desires another desire (and the sacrifce the other subject is willing to perform for it) and, on the other hand, another desire (and the sacrifce that the other subject is willing to perform for it) which also desires a desire (which is the frst subject’s desire). It is here, therefore, a matter of an equivalence between desires that are equivalent; more than an intersubjective reciprocal and reverse equivalence, there is here an equivalence between equivalences. Economic value now emerges as an objective, autonomous form,  transcending any “rational” subjective desire (or, in terms of Simmel’s teleological theory of action, any “reasonable” purpose). For both exchange partners desire, not any particular object of desire that the other subject possesses and is willing to offer, but the other subject’s desire itself – which, to the extent that it is likewise a desire desiring the other subject’s desire, consists of an empty form. Both desires no longer seek to obtain a pre-established value (i.e., an object of desire), but rather to produce value (i.e., an object of desire that is the object of another desire). They thus assume the form of pure, self-referential desire, that is, of capital. Furthermore, this has a series of consequences which the project also addresses, especially in terms of the temporality that is characteristic of capitalistic experiences, and also the normative ways of understanding and coping with such economic structure of value, desire, and sacrifce.