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The chapter presents an overview of major currency and international capital market movements after World War II, showing that the movements brought about by US investments in the fifties and sixties that created the offshore Eurodollar bear resemblance to what is now taking place between the United States as the world's investor and China. International money is created in a triangular process of long and short lending intermediated by short borrowing. The imbalances often recorded on US current account are to some extent counterbalanced by the huge returns accruing to businesses of the west. This follows the “dark matter” theory but with the twist that real value is extracted through foreign direct investment in line with the rationale of Eurodollar flows. However, threats are also created in this way. Rather than in superficial notions of instability in currency markets, the high returns on capital abroad have been instrumental both in the deindustrialization of the west and the maintenance of a high rate of consumption through the financialization of the housing market. The eventual overdrive precipitated the crisis starting in 2007, but the dollar relationship with China continues unabatedly.

The assignment of targets to instruments in developing countries cannot satisfactorily follow any simple universal rule. Which approach is appropriate is influenced by whether the economy is dominated by primary exports, by the importance of the domestic bond market and bank credit, by the extent of existing restriction in foreign exchange and financial markets, by the presence or absence of persistent high inflation, and by the existence or non‐existence of an active international market in the country's currency. Eighteen observations and maxims on stabilisation policy are tentatively drawn (pp. 64–8) from the material reviewed, and the maxims are partly summarised (pp. 69–71) in a schematic assignment, with variations, of targets to instruments.

We are today in the middle of the greatest economic catastrophe – the greatest catastrophe due almost entirely to economic causes – of the modern world…I see no reason to be in the slightest degree doubtful about the initiating causes of the slump….The leading characteristic was an extraordinary willingness to borrow money for the purposes of new real investment at very high rates of interest – rates of interest which were extravagantly high on pre-war standards, rates of interest which have never in the history of the world been earned, I should say, over a period of years over the average of enterprise as a whole. This was a phenomenon which was apparent not, indeed, over the whole world but over a very large part of it.– John Maynard Keynes (First of the Harris Foundation Lectures, 1931)

Ostrander’s notes reveal Palyi’s course to have had, in effect, four parts, the first two being principal ones. The first part is a review and interpretation of selected aspects of monetary theory, especially the Banking versus Currency Schools of monetary policy. The second part is an interpretation of recent European history, centering on the rise to power of Adolph Hitler. The third deals with Hayek, apparently through a report by another student, Albert G. Hart. The fourth deals with Keynes, apparently through a (second) report by Rose Director. These are taken up in the same sequence in this introduction.

This paper offers a framework for understanding the financial system using Marx’s theory of value. It examines how to interpret the Marxist concepts of the rate of profit and fictitious capital when analysing the financial sector, showing how accounting terms such as ‘return on equity’ and ‘leverage’ can also be understood in this context. The analysis argues that the capitalist system’s rate of profit should be conceptualised in a way that includes finance, but that one should not mix up the accumulation of financial assets with the accumulation of advanced capital. While the costs of finance are negative for the system’s average rate of profit, the paper concludes by noting how this is not inconsistent with financial operations being very profitable for imperialist powers that can use the financial system to appropriate surplus value from elsewhere in the global economy.

The purpose of this study is to research the latest quantitative and qualitative transformations of money and its interaction with the market economy and societies in terms of their influence on the inner nature of money and its transformation from a simple tool to an aim per se, i.e. postmoney. Transforming the perception of the intrinsic value and “soul” of the money into the postmoney, influenced by the rising longevity and wide expectation for the ability to scientifically prolong the human life, will be discussed. This transformation will be confirmed by analysing the results from a national representative sociological survey (panel study with sample size n = 1,000).

The author uses the following philosophical methodological approaches – comparative-constructive, phenomenological, cognitive and deconstructive analysis.

The objective and qualitative reasons offered by the postmoney theory (PMT) for the transformation of money into postmoney, are related to the being of temporality, as well as to technologization and the sixth factor of production, scientific exponentiality and mental changes in the human being. A current postmoney survey gives a strong base to believe that the perception of an intrinsic value of postmoney changes the shape of a value function – from logarithmic to linear or even stochastic. This is the reason to believe that increasing of a postmoney quantity will lead to a qualitative transformation and psychological increase of postmoney sensitivity.

The author intends to expand the postmoney survey on the international level so to confirm local findings.

Postmoney survey might be used as a powerful tool in creating and legalizing non-monistic money based on blockchain technologies and philosophical and socio-economic research of the postmoney issue.

The future of money is of great importance for the exponentiality of the socio-economic environment and societies. Social impact of the money will be inevitably rising in the domain of postmoney perception.

The author of the current paper coined for the first-time notion of postmoney and now is expanding research developing PMT. As per the best knowledge of the author, shape of the curve of value function was not questioned and believes it might be of help to better understand the money phenomenon.

Having argued in the part I paper that the interest‐based fiat monetary system is not compatible with the objectives of the Islamic law or the Shariah, this paper seeks to argue why commodity moneys, like the gold dinar and silver dirham, are compatible with the maqasid.

This is a theoretical paper that integrates information from the Qur’an, the traditions of the Prophet, the writings of early Islamic scholars and historical observations vis‐à‐vis the objectives or the maqasid al‐Shariah and makes logical deductions therefrom.

The theoretical conclusion is that while fiat money is counterproductive to the maqasid al‐Shariah, commodity moneys like the gold dinar and silver dirham, are indeed compatible with the maqasid. The Islamic economic system is, therefore, fundamentally a “barter” system, i.e. an exchange economy where goods and services are exchanged value for value, but avoids the problems associated with barter by taking some of the commodities exchanged in the economy, that have the characteristics of money, as money. Gold is argued to be the best Shari’ah money.

Empirical investigations may shed further light.

If the theoretical deductions and contentions of the paper are correct, then their practical implications cannot simply be understated. For the Islamic economic system to emerge in reality, or for that matter any process of Islamization of knowledge/disciplines to succeed, it is foremost crucial that commodity moneys gradually replace fiat money.

The paper establishes that commodity moneys like gold and silver are Shariah‐compatible moneys, whereas the current fiat money is not.