Money

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani defines money as an "existing material concept." It is a thing that, as a universal, represents all commodities and constitutes the possibility of all the things of need1. He takes up this formula from 2020 to 2025, notably in a session entitled "A chapter of Marx written by Hegel." Because it is general, money determines no use value and leaves what I want undetermined. The result is an intoxication with the indeterminate, synonymous with the infinite2. That, according to him, is why money drives one mad. He also sees in it a temporality of its own: money makes it possible to put off until later the knowledge of what I want and to remain in the negation of oneself, which makes it both magical and dangerous3. In 2019, he stresses its transforming power: what money can buy, its owner himself is, and powerlessness is turned into its opposite4. Money can hand out freedom as well as servitude5. The lack of it produces lack of differentiation: the children of poverty all end up with the same face.

1. 1L'idéologie naturaliste / Réponses aux questions - Dominique Pagani25 Jul 2025 · 12:46
2. 2La répression du sujet dans la société civile bourgeoise9 Aug 2025 · 11:20
3. 3La répression du sujet dans la société civile bourgeoise9 Aug 2025 · 22:32
4. 4Argent, travail, liberté3 Aug 2019 · 5:28
5. 5Argent, travail, liberté3 Aug 2019 · 49:35

Summary produced automatically from 10 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.