ABSTRACT
The hurdle in outlining a cultural theory is that of terminology, and the many and various definitions of the slippery notion culture. A focus on communities allows cultural theorists to overcome the limitation of the stark choice between absolutism and relativism, and to see a pluralism composed of several sustainable ways of life. The real moment of choosing is choice of comrades and their way of life, and from this choice about how to relate to other people are derived the myriad preferences that make up everyday life. The suggested methodological approach is applied, by way of example, to the case of the development of bullionist monetary theory and policy in England at the turn of the nineteenth-century. It is a story of the stylistic and substantive polarization of monetary thought into bullionist and anti-bullionist camps, and of the faltering passage of bullionist theory into policy practice during the period 1797 to 1819–1821.
