As such, money is not merely a numerical measure but is also an “insignia” by which human beings express “concern” about their own welfare as natural and social beings. In this regard, Heidegger’s view of the “mobilization of the worker” seems to suffer from underestimating Karl Marx’s insight into the unique status of money as “capital.” That is, qua capital money is not only a “bartering” tool (having a “use-value”),1 but is also a vehicle for expressing the confluence of interests among different members of society, a formula for simplifying diverse interests (e.g., of both need and desire) into a common language. As Marx emphasizes, money is more than just the physical currency that we circulate, or, even, as in the case of gold, a representation of the value of that currency. Instead, money as capital is the “declension” of worth that bespeaks society’s interest (in the value) of the commodities we exchange—the entire circuit of buying and selling; money thereby “stands for” the process of circulation itself, its social as well as fiscal dynamics.2
If we take Marx’s clue about the importance of capital, and transpose it within the macro-context of Heidegger’s critique of technology—rather than utilize that analysis for the purpose of advancing one ideology over another (e.g., communism over capitalism)—another portrait emerges: exchange becomes part of the composition of the existentiale of everydayness. To the extent that we emphasize the priority of exchange over production, and shift the focus of Heidegger’s discussion of everydayness accordingly, we must then address how this change occurs in ontological terms. No matter in which cultural milieu we may exist, and however everydayness in turn comes to be expressed, in one way or another, care (Sorge) continues to define the constitution of human being. And if exchange is to define a mode of interaction made possible by care, then the importance of money must depend on how it contributes to the self’s potentiality or ability to be (Seinkönnen). Indeed, money is not only something with which we are passively concerned (e.g., as in whether the New York Yankees win another World Series); money instead pertains to the capability we have, or, more specifically, to facilitating the development of that potential.
In a free-market economy, to be of “means” is an inescapable aspect of having opportunity. Insofar as the potentiality to be, and, concomitantly, specific possibilities, define the self, money derives its importance through the creation of opportunity, for example, travel or a college education. But does not the allusion to “being of means” suggest that the value of money resides in its instrumentality? On the contrary, the “of means” is as much a suggestion of an ability that poses a challenge to the self, as an instrument of use (i.e., use-value) in acquiring things to possess. Once again, money exhibits an ambivalent character because we associate its value with the material goods that can be bought with it. Yet when construed as having an affiliation as much with care as with things ready-to-hand, the “ability to be” assigns to money its importance as the key to unlocking the self’s opportunities within the exchange economy of capitalism. In support of this contrast, we can point to Heidegger’s distinction in Being and Time between “not genuine” and “genuine,” by which the development of any possibility implies a tension between the self’s pursuit of instrumentality and its choice of individuality.3
But did not Heidegger reject capitalism particularly as epitomized in the American way of life? Indeed, he did. But I am not suggesting that capitalism is a self-sustaining system, as much as indicating how information technology relocates the axis of everyday commerce on a global plane, thereby integrating the capitalist medium of exchange into the fabric of everydayness. This view is still consistent with Heidegger’s claim that technology unfolds as a historical possibility, which exacts special social and economic changes. Conversely, the medium of exchange exemplified in capitalism assumes its unique dynamism precisely because of information technology. When seen in this light, capitalism becomes the preferred economic system less through accident than through the constellation of historical circumstances within the frame (Gestell) of technology.4
Are we not going far afield from Heidegger’s thinking, even if a new questioning of technology allows us to mark the convergence between the milieu of everydayness and the ubiquity of the exchange medium within postindustrialized society? After all, Heidegger was primarily concerned with the question of being. Is there any warrant in believing that being in Heidegger’s sense exhibits a dynamism that enables us to reinterpret the “exchange medium” in ontological terms? To this question we will now turn.
- Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (New York: Random House, 1977), 188-92. For a contrast between Heidegger’s and Marx’s view of technology, and the presuppositions governing the former’s critique of the latter, see Zimmerman, Heidegger’s Confrontation with Modernity, 251-55. For a discussion of how Heidegger’s distaste for economic ideologies—Marxist or capitalist—was a factor preventing him from linking (monetary) exchange with everydayness, see Frank Schalow, “Heidegger and the Question of Economics,” American Catholic Philosophical Association vol. LXXIV, no. 2 (2000): 249-67.[↩]
- Marx, Capital, 188-93.[↩]
- GA2; p. 190; tr. 186.[↩]
- Heidegger, “Die Frage nach der Technik,” in Vorträge und Aufsätze, GA 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2000), 16-36. “The Question Concerning Technology,” in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 16-35.[↩]