doiSerbia

Money and sociality: Measuring the unmeasurable money as justice, time and usury

Janković Zoran (CEGEP de St-Laurent, Département de philosophie, Montreal, Canada)

Levinas confirms: a reflection about a money as a social and economical reality is not possible without a serious analysis of empirical data. On the other hand, this reflection always involves something else, so a money is never a merely economical category. In that sense, Levinas proposes an intriguing meditation about some “dimensions” of a money in the western tradition. Contrary to the traditional moral condemnation of a money - which however remains unquestionable because of the fact that a man always carries a risk of becoming a merchandise - Levinas suggests that money never simply means a reification, but always implies some positive dimensions. Levinas suggests that a money is not something morally bad or simply neutral covering human relationships, but rather a condition of human community. Furthermore, he claims that a money is a fundament of the justice. A money makes possible a community, he explains, because it opens up the dimension of the future, and implies the existence of human beings who give themselves a credit; a credit understood as a time and a confidence. We shall try to address some problems implied by this thesis, particularly the problem of the relationship between time, money and credit. Finally, we are going to ask whether this cred­it - inseparable from the very essence of the money - is not always already a sort of usury.

Keywords: Levinas, money, sociality, usury, gift, justice, love