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Independent Radical Publishing

Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government
John Locke’s Philosophy of Money

By George Caffentzis

Foreword by Harry Cleaver

A classic examination of John Locke’s philosophy of economics, language and history

Description

This book situates John Locke’s philosophy of knowledge and his political theory within his engagement in British monetary debates of the 17th and 18th century.

Anchored in extensive archival research, George Caffentzis offers the most expansive reading of Locke’s economic thought to date, contextualizing it within the expansion of capitalist accumulation on a world scale and the universality of money as a medium of exchange.

Updated with a new introduction by Paul Rekret, a new foreword by Harry Cleaver and new material by the author, Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government continues to make a significant intervention in contemporary debates around the history of capitalism, colonialism and philosophy.

George Caffentzis is a co-founder of the Midnight Notes Collective and coordinator of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA). Caffentzis was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine for over thirty years before retirement. He is the author of Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government and Civilizing Money.

Harry Cleaver is Associate Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Reading Capital Politically (AK Press; 2nd ed, 2000).

Acknowledgments
Note on the New Edition
Foreword
Introduction to the New Edition
Preface
Introduction
1. Clipped Coins
2. Civil Government
3. Abused Words
Conclusion: Weaving an Origin
Postface: John Locke, the Philosopher of Primitive Accumulation
Notes
Bibliography
Index

‘Caffentzis is a practical philosopher and a pure teacher. His reasoning even at its most abstract always tends to the political. The street is his classroom. This is truly vulgar Marxism, that is, it is a critique by, with, and for the vulgus, or common people (you and I)’

– Peter Linebaugh, author of ‘The Magna Carta Manifesto’ (University of California Press, 2008)

Additional information

Publication date: July 2021
Paperback page count: 224
Paperback ISBN: 9780745342078
Paperback dimensions: 135 × 215 mm
Ebook publication date: July 2021
Ebook ISBN: 9781786807694