On the Sociality of Money According to Emmanuel Levinas

A philosophy of human existence and society that does not speak of money is too spiritualistic and heroic. According to Emmanuel Levinas, the daily struggle for food and a roof over one’s head is the concrete, earthly context in which money appears. Specifically, money exhibits a multi-dimensional meaning, both individual and interpersonal, social and political. About this, Levinas says that he looks for “the first movements, the first gestures” above all. Since self-interest is at the center of attention in prominent economic and political theories since Hobbes, we first examine how money gives expression to this interestedness and to the mutual self-interest between people. Since this reciprocal self-interest presupposes the “face-to-face” relationship, in a second but more original movement, the “otherwise than being” of responsibility for the other comes to the fore. Attention is paid to the way in which money “mediates” disinterestedness through giving and service, for example, through borrowing as an act of friendship. The full ethical and social significance of money comes into play only when the many “third parties” appear, creating the need not only for distributive justice but also for a just socioeconomic and political order (“state”). To the extent that money plays an essentially mediating role in that ordering, it also runs the risk of perverting into a “totalizing monetary regime.” Hence, last but not least, the need for a final reflection that reaches “beyond the economic, monetary system.”