Mammon’s Revenge

This adapted version of a previously unpublished 2011 paper reflecting on the financial crisis of 2007/8 is reproduced because so little seems to have been learned from that crisis and what followed. Beginning with two money parables from the New Testament, the article sketches the way in which money has developed and its relation to the 2007/8 financial crisis and to its position of dominance, exemplified in the rise of gambling and expansion of differentials. It is money rather than markets that needs scrutiny, as the dominance of money has changed the nature of markets themselves, and so the possibilities for the restoration of money to its role as instrument rather than dominance are examined.