Liquidate: How Money is Dissolving the World

Alf Hornborg is an anthropologist and Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology at Lund University, Sweden.

"Money is quintessentially fungible. It is a sign that has no specific socially agreed upon referent. As such, it amplifies the human propensity for a form of thought that is separate from the sentient world from which we emerge and upon which we depend, a form of thought that has made Culture a veritable force of Nature. Liquidate is a fascinating and masterful exploration of the vexing properties of money as a medium for thought, and how to re-imagine this medium as we face a human-made and planet-wide ecological crisis." - Eduardo Kohn, McGill University, Canada"Money is the most central, and probably misunderstood commodity in modern economies. This book digs beneath the fetish to unearth the real nature of money."- Giorgos Kallis, ICTA-UAB, Spain“At once wide-ranging and incisive, Alf Hornborg offers a critique of the pivotal role money plays in our modern predicaments from growing inequalities to destruction of our common habitat, to sociability itself. He calls for a redesign of this human artifact.” - Stephen Gudeman, University of Minnesota, USA“Alf Hornborg is a pioneer of ecosemiotics. This is a field that is necessary to live with biodiversity in the coming millennia. The book explains why money as a semiotic force together with excessive energy as a physical force destroys diversity. A must for future designers, it also helps to understand the ecosystem's way to live in balance.”- Kalevi Kull, University of Tartu, Estonia“After the sudden death of David Graeber, Alf Hornborg offers the most radical critique of value, money, and fetishism.” - Kohei Saito, University of Tokyo, Japan

• Part 1 The Semiotics of Money Fetishism 1. The Empty Sign 2. Money and Civilisation 3. The Semiotics of Fetishism Part 2 Money, Materiality, and Entropy 4. Beyond the Veil of Market Prices 5. Technology as Fetish 6. Money, Entropy, and Climate Change Part 3 Diversity, Place, and Resistance 7. The Meltdown of Diversity 8. Civilisation Without Money 9. Visions of Indigenousness 10. Meaningful Money?