The incest taboo?
A reconsideration of Westermarck
Gregory C. Leavitt

Beyond the Taboo: Imaging Incest
Anna Meigs and Kathleen Barlow
American Anthropologist
New Series, Vol. 104, No. 1 (Mar., 2002), pp. 38-49
(article consists of 12 pages)

The aim of this report is to assess the state of Islamic banking in North Africa, examine why it has failed to take-off and consider its future potential and how it can contribute to the economic development. The rationale for Islamic finance is explained and its essential features described. Once shari’ah compliant financing facilities become available, funds that otherwise might not be available can be harnessed for both commercial and development projects. In addition to diversifying funding sources, Islamic finance can ensure better monitoring of how funds are deployed, improving the effectiveness of financial intermediation

This is the English language version of the entry on ‘Money’ (‘Geld’) in the ‘Historisch Kritisch
Wörterbuch des Marxismus’, a comprehensive dictionary of Marxist terminology being produced as
an accompaniment to the Marx-Engels-Gesamt-Arbeite (Marx-Engels collected works), a
comprehensive critical edition of the works of Marx and Engels: Historisch Kritisch Wörterbuch
des Marxismus, Band 5: Gegenöffentlichkeit–Hegemonialapparat. Hamburg: Argument-Verlag,
ISBN 3-88619-435-

Recent contributions to the study of the evolution of early human society from its prehuman primatepredecessors make it possible to reassess Freud’s theory of the ‘‘primal crime’’ put forward in the fourthessay of 
Totem and Taboo 
. Shorn of its antiquated language, and of its unnecessary ‘‘Lamarckism,’’ Freud’spicture of the transition from prehuman to early hominid social structure turns out to have been remarkably plausi-ble and prescient. [psychoanalytic anthropology, Freud’s cultural theory, ‘‘
Totem and Taboo 
,’’ human evolution,egalitarianism

ABSTRACT: This article is an attempt to sketch a philosophical view of money as a social phenomenon. I show that the way to understand the substance of money is to analyze its meaning as a medium of exchange in connection with its meaning as a purpose of exchange, thereby providing an investigation of its social value. This approach has been used by many of the great philosophers and economists of the past, but not today. Modern economics is a policy oriented theoretical discipline and concentrates its efforts on solving practical tasks. I hope to contribute a philosophical approach to economic research.

Lately, there’s been a good deal of excitement about Bitcoin[1], an (allegedly)decentralised currency, based on proof-of-work.I explore the limitations and costs of Bitcoin and introduce an efficient alternative.Both Bitcoin and my alternative proposal suffer from a problem for which thereis no known solution: creating consensus in a group with open, changing membership. But at least my proposal fails in an energy efficient way, unlike Bitcoin.

We study the problem of preventing double spending in electronic payment schemes in a distributed fashion. This problem occurs,for instance, when the spending of electronic coins needs to be controlledby a large collection of nodes (e.g., in a peer-to-peer (P2P) system) instead of one central bank. Contrary to the commonly held belief thatthis is fundamentally impossible, we propose several solutions that doachieve a reasonable level of double spending prevention, and analysetheir efficiency under varying assumptions

This paper examines some of the ways in which the everyday is becoming connectedinto the world of nance, a process facilitated through so-called derivatives. The increasing use of derivatives is traced to the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement and theways in which innovative developments in nancial engineering were used to overcomethe uncertainties of interest rate, currency and price risks that grew apace from the early1970

Why Revolution always Boils Down to Evolution
by Glyn Davies
This paper was given as the Keynote Address at the First Consult Hyperion Digital Money Forum 7th-8th October 1997, London, Digital Money: New Era or Business as Usual?

Money is apparently undergoing a revolutionary change with the introduction of e-money. Glyn Davies considered the significance of this transformation in the light of earlier "revolutions", as outlined in his book, A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day.