ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the relationship between money and culture and analyzes the social mechanisms that enable money to store and transport value. Subsequently, the fundamentals of the sociological approach to analyzing non-monetary value are presented. This is the starting point to understanding how money and culture interact with each other to create a complex landscape of economic relationships. Section 2.4 analyzes the model of instrumental rationality and the self-interested, instrumental maximizer, which supports mainstream economic theory's orthodox explanation of how money works in the economy. This chapter concludes with a discussion of the relationship between monetary and non-monetary value. Orthodox definitions of money as a neutral thing are questioned, and we take the opportunity to rethink the role money plays in addressing the pressing problems of society.
