Conceptualising the labour-money connection

A critical re-examination of Benetti and Cartelier's Marchands, salariat et capitalistes

Abstract

Carlo Benetti and Jean Cartelier's Marchands, salariat et capitalistes (1980) may be seen as a French attempt to develop a radical "monetary" paradigm, designed to counter the dominant neoclassical model. In this article, we argue that while the monetary approach is necessary for an epistemological break from orthodoxy, it is insufficient for the development of a genuinely heterodox paradigm. The problem is its conceptual limitation to a form of "monetary purism". This approach is limited by a form of "monetary purism" and this limitation makes it incapable of attributing any theoretical status either to the labour force or to the wage-labour nexus.