Making Money

Making Money examines the interrelation between problem gambling, drug addiction and shopaholism on the one hand and contemporary capitalism on the other. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from neurobiological research to Marx's theory of surplus value and from Andersen's tale of "The Princess and the Pea" to interviews with drug addicts, the author dissects three key components of modern capitalism—money, the body and the commodity—in order to establish that the gambler, the drug addict and the shopaholic are, in the end, both a post-ideological avant-garde and a destitute waste-product of capitalism.“With its explosive combination of philosophy, economics, and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Bjerg’s book provides an absolutely indispensable guide through the labyrinth of economics. It makes us fully aware of thecrazy world we live in. It is a kind of theoretical equivalent of a science fiction filmin which we discover that aliens are already among us and are controlling us.”
—Slavoj Žižek

“Ole Bjerg provides us with a brilliant philosophical examination of this phenomenon that we call ‘money’ … This book should be onthe reading list of all economists, bankers, civil servants, politicians and, most importantly, of all citizens if we are to stand any chance of overcoming the deep dysfunctions of themoney and banking system that were drama-tically revealed by their near collapse in 2008.”
—Tony Greenham, Head of Finance and Business at New Economics Foundation and co-author of Where Does Money Come From? Ole Bjerg is a Danish sociologist, Associate Professor at the Copenhagen Business School, who has published extensively on addiction, ethics and capitalism.