"The lack of money is the root of all evil," quipped Mark Twain in his
recasting of the biblical observation about the moral dangers of greed.
And the enormous, and ever-widening, economic disparities today--both
between the richest and poorest nations, and between the richest and
poorest individuals--do in fact highlight the connection between
capitalism's systematic promotion of the love of money and the necessary
poverty this produces elsewhere. The most pervasive of all our fictions,
money resists traditional critique, some have suggested, insofar as
knowing how it operates in no way undermines its ability to structure
our social relations. Cabinet issue 50, with a special section on
"Money," features Rebecca L. Spang on the unusual history of the notion
of inflation; Clara Warner on money in the Middle Ages; an interview
with Stephen Mihm on counterfeiting in early America; and a portfolio of
artist projects reimagining modes of exchange. Elsewhere in the issue:
Paul Freedman on the history of official state dinners; Geoff Manaugh on
the architecture of Los Angeles bank heists; and Kevin McCann on
self-taught linguist Jean-Pierre Brisset and his claim that human beings
descended from frogs.
