Money & Soul

A New Balance Between Finance and Feelings

Many people feel that money and what we perceive as the psyche, or soul, are bitter enemies: do we choose money or soul, finance or feelings, markets or common humanity? This book traces the origins of these opposing concepts and the feelings that money provokes. Economic ideas often stand out as being universal, globally valid, and without cultural ties. But money is narrative and image just as much as it is a means of exchange and of preserving wealth. By viewing money as culture and philosophy, it becomes evident that the money of today is a system of symbols, something that society itself has devised over many centuries. Having considered the nature of money and psyche, Per Espen Stoknes asks how our culture makes us feel and think about them, and proposes how the framework around money can be expanded. This develops the idea of extended accounting to include natural and social capital in addition to the manufactured capital we are used to entering in the accounts—currently to the exclusion of all else. Money & Soul opens up new methods of looking at, thinking about, and using money. It points to a future where our ideas about money will be greatly expanded, and there will be different kinds of money, with different social purposes, in circulation.