Skip to content

Video From barter to Bitcoin what is money

Marxist Theory · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that money is not a neutral medium of exchange or a natural phenomenon, but a historically specific social relation that arises from and reflects the contradictions of commodity-producing society. Adam Booth argues that the apparent mystery surrounding money — its power, its abstraction, its seeming independence from human activity — is a product of commodity fetishism under capitalism. The talk traces the development of money from simple barter through precious metals, credit, and cryptocurrencies to demonstrate that each form of money corresponds to a particular stage in the development of commodity production and exchange. The ultimate claim is that money's domination over human beings is not eternal but can be abolished only through the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a planned socialist economy.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in Marx's theory of commodity fetishism and the value-form, as developed in Volume I of Capital. Booth draws on Marx's demonstration that the value of commodities is not a natural property but a social relation between producers, which appears as a relation between things. Money emerges necessarily from the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value within the commodity itself: as exchange becomes generalised, one commodity must function as the universal equivalent, the measure of value and medium of circulation.

The talk also engages with Marx's distinction between simple commodity circulation (C-M-C) and capitalist circulation (M-C-M'), showing how money transforms from a means of exchange into the self-expanding value of capital. The analysis of credit money and fictitious capital draws on Volume III of Capital, particularly Marx's discussion of the credit system as both a necessary development of capitalism and a source of heightened instability.

Booth situates himself within the classical Marxist tradition that treats money as a historically transitory form, not a permanent feature of human society. The talk explicitly rejects both neoclassical economics (which treats money as a neutral veil over barter) and the crypto-libertarian claim that cryptocurrencies represent a liberation from state control.

Conjunctural Relevance

The talk was delivered in 2018, at a moment when cryptocurrencies — particularly Bitcoin — had surged in value and were being promoted by figures such as Roger Ver and Andreas Antonopoulos as a democratic alternative to fiat currency and central banking. Booth directly addresses this conjuncture, arguing that cryptocurrencies do not transcend the contradictions of money but reproduce them in a more volatile form. He notes that Bitcoin's value fluctuates wildly, that its mining consumes enormous energy, and that it has become a vehicle for speculation rather than a stable medium of exchange.

The talk also situates itself in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which demonstrated the fragility of the credit system and led to quantitative easing programmes by central banks. Booth argues that these interventions — far from solving capitalism's problems — merely postponed the crisis by inflating new asset bubbles. The rise of cryptocurrencies is analysed as a symptom of this instability: a search for a "safe haven" that ultimately reproduces the logic of speculation.

Geopolitically, the talk touches on the role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency, noting that this gives the US state enormous power but also makes the global economy vulnerable to dollar-denominated crises. The analysis connects to broader Marxist debates about the tendency of the rate of profit to fall and the necessity of periodic crises to devalue overaccumulated capital.

Where the Argument Continues

This talk is a popular exposition of arguments developed more systematically in Booth's book Understanding Marx's Capital. For readers seeking deeper theoretical grounding, the following resources are relevant:

  • "The Marxist Theory of Money" (marxist.com) — a more detailed treatment of Marx's value-form analysis.
  • "Crisis and the Credit System" (marxist.com) — an examination of how credit money and fictitious capital relate to capitalist crisis.
  • "Bitcoin and the Crisis of Capitalism" (marxist.com) — a direct engagement with the cryptocurrency phenomenon.
  • Against the Stream episodes on financialisation and the 2008 crisis — these develop the conjunctural analysis of credit bubbles.
  • Marx's Capital, Volume I, Chapter 1 — the foundational text on commodity fetishism and the value-form.
  • Marx's Capital, Volume III, Chapters 25-36 — the analysis of credit and fictitious capital.

The talk leaves open the question of how a socialist society would organise distribution without money — a question taken up in other IDOM articles on socialist planning and the transition period.

Connections

  • Marx, Capital, Volume I — the theory of the value-form and the fetishism of commodities.
  • Marx, Capital, Volume III — the credit system, fictitious capital, and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
  • Hilferding, Finance Capital — the analysis of the concentration of banking and industrial capital.
  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism — the connection between finance capital and geopolitical rivalry.
  • Rubin, Essays on Marx's Theory of Value — a classic exposition of the value-form and fetishism.
  • Heinrich, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Marx's Capital — a modern reconstruction of Marx's value theory, though with some political differences from the RCI tradition.
  • Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists — cited in the talk for its image of money as a "chain of gold".

Key Quotes

  1. "Money is not a thing, it is a social relation. It is the expression of the value of commodities, and value itself is a social relation between commodity producers."

  2. "The more complex the money system becomes, the more removed and mysterious it seems. But this mystery is not accidental — it is the necessary form of appearance of a society where production is carried on by private individuals, independently of each other, and only connected through the exchange of their products."

  3. "Cryptocurrencies do not abolish the contradictions of money. They reproduce them in a more extreme form. Bitcoin is not a stable measure of value, it is a speculative asset whose price fluctuates wildly. It cannot fulfil the functions of money in a stable way."

  4. "Under capitalism, money is not just a means of exchange. It is the starting point and the end point of the circuit of capital: M-C-M'. Money begets more money. This is the driving force of the entire system."

  5. "The credit system, far from abolishing the contradictions of capitalism, intensifies them. It allows production to expand beyond the limits of the market, creating the conditions for ever more violent crises."

  6. "To break free from the chain of gold, we must break free from the system that gives money its power. Not by creating new forms of money, but by abolishing the commodity form itself, and with it the need for money."