MONEY AS AN ABSTRACT MACHINE IN DELEUZE & GUATTARI:

TOWARD A DIAGRAM OF THE MONETARY PHENOMENON

Abstract

Monetary theory is an interdisciplinary field with diverse approaches to the foundation of money. This article articulates these perspectives by proposing money as an abstract machine and a diagram, drawing on the concepts of Deleuze & Guattari. It argues that money presides over the production of contemporary socio-historical, desiring, and economic reality, functioning as a social institution that institutes relations. We explain the abstract machine, its components (form of expression/content, substance of expression/content), and how money, as such, transforms an abstract and deterritorializing flow of finance into the social segments of community, market, state, and nation. To this end, we adapt Keith Hart’s schema, transforming it into a Deleuzo-Guattarian framework. We highlight the non-representational and operative nature of money, whose function is to produce, assign, and distribute value. The analysis incorporates the duality of money (flow of means of payment vs. mutating flow of finance), showing how the abstract machine organizes formless matter into forms (state unit of account, market medium of exchange) and substances (national wealth, intersubjective trust). This approach integrates the multiple facets of money, emphasizing its productive role and deepening the Deleuzo-Guattarian theory of capitalism.