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26.04–28.04.2021
Conference

Money and Interest: Economics and Ethics

9th Annual International conference "Money and Interest: Economics and Ethics".

Money presents a perennial and formidable problem for economists like squaring the circle for mathematicians. Various monetary theories provide clues to the diverse aspects of the money phenomenon, but there is no universal theory of money that satisfies all claims. In recent years, there has been an obvious surge of interest in money theory and origin issues due to the emergence of electronic money, i. e. cryptocurrencies. Philosophers, anthropologists and sociologists, contesting the solutions offered by economists from various perspectives, all have their own answers to the puzzle of money, debt and interest, but even on the economists' side there has never been any agreement on these issues. The debates run by representatives of various disciplines and schools centre around a number of invariably compelling questions, in particular: to what extent is money universal? Which one came first—barter or money? Is the ontology of money limited to its functions or can one discover some substance beyond the latter? How is money related to trust, violence and communication? How is the monetary domain related to the domain of morality or ethics?

The latter question is particularly important as it directly concerns people's everyday life—not only their material wealth, but also their human dignity related to the matter of equity. Historically, the ethical discussion of money coincided with contemplating interest or moneylending (usura). The lender was often limited by moral norms and legal practices in setting the interest rate. In Ancient Rome, for example, cumulative interest, i. e. interest on interest (usura usurarum), was prohibited, and the Laws of the Twelve Tables stipulated that no one could charge more than twelve percent. A long time ago, Aristotle had inferred arguments against usury from his insight into money, but the medieval Scholastics, although not formally breaking with Aristotelianism and the principles of Christian ethics, came to understand that positive interest might be related to the compensation of lost opportunities, lost profit or default risk, which actually led to justifying moneylending in modern times, thus contributing to the ideological substantiation of capitalism. Nevertheless, one cannot consider this issue brought to a close as there have always been and will be those willing to challenge the hegemony of the capitalistic view of life. It is evident that studying interest and money, no matter how approached, offers a wide scope for the research of conflict and possible coexistence of social equity and economic viability.

Monetary policy and interest rates have long been in the spotlight of macroeconomics. Post-Keynesians, emphasizing the key role of credit and debt relationships, financial innovations and speculations, have been long advocating the necessity of a full-scale departure from the neoclassical standard of "real economy" towards "monetary economy." The development of fiat monetary systems pose new challenges to monetary authorities as well, while the emergence of alternative money in the form of digital currencies creates a potential hotspot for increased financial and price instability. The design of monetary systems of the future, matching the eventual technological innovations with the efficiency and security of transactions, avoidance of the "cash curse" and minimization of the "bubble" risk, is seen as a significant theoretical challenge. The likely emergence of digital currencies, as shown by the Libra project, may give rise to new supranational financial monopolies with unlimited economic influence that develops into political influence. Managing between preventing threats for the monetary sovereignty, assuring the transparency of new digital payment technologies and observing the strict limits for intervention into the private financial space presents a complicated ethical problem not only for central banks, but for the public at large.

Program Committee

  • Jerome Blanc (Sciences Po Lyon, France)
  • Denis Kadochnikov (SPbU)
  • Aleksei Kudrin (SPbU)
  • Nikolai Nenovsky (University of Picardy Jules Verne, France)
  • Vsevolod Ostapenko (SPbU)
  • Aleksander Pogrebnyak (SPbU)
  • Danila Raskov (SPbU)
  • Maksim Storchevoy (Higher School of Economics)
  • Pavel Shust (SPbU; Electronic Money Association)

Program

April 26

12:30–1:30pm Registration of offline participants

1:30–2:00pm Opening of the conference: Aleksei Kudrin (SPbU), Danila Raskov (SPbU)

2:00–3:45pm Day session. Moderator: Danila Raskov

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  • Andre Orlean (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, France) "The Monetary Community as a Political Body (La Communauté Monétaire Comme Corps Politique)"
  • Ole Bjerg (Copenhagen Business School, Denmark) "Making Future Money"

4:00–5:00pm Discussion "Debt To Be Returned or To Be Forgiven: Who Decides?" Moderator: Aleksei Savatyugin

  • Boris Voronin (National Association of Professional Collection Agencies, Moscow) "How Is the Ethics of Collectors Created?"
  • Maksim Storchevoy (Higher School of Economics) "The Ethics of Debt Forgiveness"

4:00–5:00pm Discussion of the project of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Journal on Social Science and Humanities

5:00–6:30pm Parallel sessions

Art and Money. Moderator: Nina Savchenkova

  • Olga Davydova (SPbU) "An Indifferent Camera and Non-Directing: 'Direct Cinema' as an Implementation of the Cultural Logic of Capitalism"
  • Elena Zhbankova (Lomonosov Moscow State University) "Reception of Money in Russian Classical Art"
  • Natalia Marievskaya (Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, Moscow) "Are the Rich and Famous in Danger? The Experience of Spatial Analysis of the Films 'Joker' Directed by Todd Phillips (2019), 'Parasites' Directed by Bong Joon-ho (2019), 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...' Directed by Quentin Tarantino (2019)"
  • Leonid Salmin (Ural State Academy of Architecture and Arts, Yekaterinburg) "Holiday in the City: The Poetics of Money in the Visual Discourse of Vice and Virtue"
  • Artem Berkovich (Center of Photography "March", Yekaterinburg) "Counterfeit Money and Fake Crimes"

Money in Catholicism. Moderator: Irina Chaplygina

  • Ekaterina Gushchina (EUSP) "Ethics of Interest Rate: A View of a Medieval Monk (On the Basis of Francesc Eiximenis' Works)"
  • Zhanna Nikolaeva (SPbU) "The Catholic Economy, Ethics, and the Spirit of the Counter-Reformation. Notes to the Statement of the Problem"
  • Anton Rudokvas (SPbU) "Money and Interest in the Doctrine of the Catholic Church"
  • Irina Chaplygina (Lomonosov Moscow State University), Andre Lapidus (University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, France) "Thomas Aquinas' Concept of Money and Usury"

Personal Finance. Moderator: Nina Oding

  • Olga Aleksandrova (Institute of Socioeconomic Studies of Population of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Financial University Under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow) "Money in the Cultural Archetype: Impact on Financial Literature"
  • Andrey Bazanov (SPbU) "On Insurance Literacy of the Population"
  • Andrey Demin (Kuban State University, Krasnodar) "Financial Self-Control and Loan Repayment"
  • Elmira Kashapova (Tomsk Polytechnic University) "Financial Literacy at an Older Ages"
  • Nina Oding (Leontief Centre) "Financial Literacy in the Consumption of Financial Services"

Debt and Interest. Moderator: Sofya Salomatina

  • Danila Raskov (SPbU) "Discussions About Interest and Extortion in the 17th Century"
  • Denis Kadochnikov (SPbU) "Subnational Borrowings and Debt Management in Russia: Challenges and Prospects"
  • Gadilya Kornoukhova (Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, Moscow) "The Problem of Non-Repayment of Debts in the Business Culture of Persian Entrepreneurs in the Context of Russian-Persian Trade Relations at the Turn of the 19th–20th Centuries"
  • Sofia Salomatina (Lomonosov Moscow State University) "Bank Credit Accessibility in the Russian Empire in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Centuries: Interest Rate Analysis"

6:30–7:00pm Coffee break

7:00–8:00pm Presentation of the book by L. Boltansky and A. Esquerre "Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities." Moderator: Sergey Fokin. Participants: Olga Dobryanskaya (EUSP), Aleksei Shestakov, Olga Volchek

April 27

9:00–10:00am Registration of participants

10:00–11:40am Morning session. Moderator: Maksim Storchevoy

  • Jérôme Blanc (Sciences Po, France) "Understanding Monetary Plurality: An Institutionalist Approach"
  • Aleksander Dubyansky (SPbU) "Theories of the Origins of Money in the Context of the Modern Evolution of Money Circulation"

11:40–12:00pm Coffee break

12:00–2:00pm Parallel sessions

The History of Monetary Reforms. Moderator: Lev Savulkin

  • Marinova Tsvetelina (New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria) "Birth and Evolution of Social and Solidarity Finance and Credit in Bulgaria from the End of the 19th and During the 20th Century"
  • Shouyi Zhang (University of Picardy Jules Verne, France) "An Overview of the Monetary Reforms in China: Continuous or Discrete"
  • Yuri Basilov (New York University, USA), Bill Molos (Abu Dhabi) "Discussion on Legal and Just Interest Rate in Money Lending Among Greek and Russian Clerics in the Age of Enlightenment"
  • John Taylor (SPbU) "Success and Failure: The Founding of the Bank of England and John Law Similar Reforms in France"
  • Igor Filippov (Lomonosov Moscow State University) "Money and Prices in Early Medieval Western Europe"
  • Lev Savulkin (Leontief Centre) "Successful Monetary Reform (Case of Germany in the 40s of the 20th Century)"

Money, Literature, Writers. Moderator: Sergey Fokin

  • Denis Akhapkin (SPbU) "Money as an Image of Comparison in the Poetics of Joseph Brodsky"
  • Andrey Belykh (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow) "Money and Ethics: Case Study of Pushkins’ Family"
  • Aleksander Kovalev (Belarusian National Technical University, Belarus) "The Problem of 'Interest' in the 'Merchant of Venice:' Diversity of Meanings"
  • Tatiana Boborykina (SPbU) "Money or Soul?"

The Social Function of Money in Religious Doctrines. Moderator: Konstantin Golubev

  • Konstantin Golubev (Belarusian State University of Economics, Belarus) "The Christian View on Usury and the Principal of Catholic Social Teaching About the Universal Purpose of Goods"
  • Andrey Danilov (Belarusian State University, Belarus) "Religious Ideology and Ethics in the Context of Monetary Policy of Constantine the Great" Vadim Dudkin (Belarusian State University, Belarus) "The Sacred Origins of Money"
  • Sergey Lukin (Belarusian State University, Belarus) "Exegetical Versions of the New Testament Doctrine of Debt and Interest"
  • Nikolay Savchuk (Minsk Theological Academy; Church of the Nativity of Christ, Belarus) "The Dual Position of the Catholic Church in Relation to Money and Interest"
  • Sergey Shatravsky (Belarusian State University, Belarus) "The Attitude to Money in Buddhist Monasticism"

The Nature of Money: Symbolic, Imaginary, Real. Moderator: Aleksander Dubyansky

  • Aleksander Pogrebnyak (SPbU) "The Flow of Money and the Flow of Love (From Birds' Life)"
  • Georgy Livadnov (Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg) "The Phenomenon of Money at the Junction of Marxism and Psychoanalysis"
  • Evgeny Malyshkin (SPbU) "Theorem 22"
  • Nina Savchenkova (SPbU) "Desire in the Framework of the Ritual, or About the Discretion of Libidinal Flows (Reading the Interpretation of the Film by J. Labrune 'Sans Queu ni Tete')"
  • Aleksander Sarna (Belarusian State University of Economics, Belarus) "The Bill Is Like a Leaflet. The Symbolic Capital of Money in Political Agitation"
  • Yuri Tulupenko (Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia) "Imaginary Money in the Normative Worldview of the Enlightenment"

Ethics of Money. Ethics of Platforms. Moderator: Tatiana Shishkina

  • Igor Chubarov (Tyumen State University) "Ethics of Digital Platforms. The Case of Uber"
  • Tatiana Lukicheva (SPbU) "Digital Work Platforms: Economic Effects and Ethical Pitfalls"
  • Pavel Lukichev (Baltic State Technical University "Voenmeh" D. F. Ustinov) "Money and Ethics: Are Experts Independent?"
  • Olga Nifaeva (Bryansk State Technical University) "Ethics of Monetary Economy in the History of Economic Thought"
  • Valery Fedorov "Ethical Norms as Incentives. A Fragment of Modal Economic Theory"

2:00–3:00pm Lunch

3:00–4:30pm Day session. Moderator: Vsevolod Ostapenko

  • Oleg Shibanov (New Economic School, Moscow) "Macroeconomics and Financial Markets After 2020: Why Asset Prices, Consumer Behavior, and the Macro Environment are Changing"
  • Yulia Vymyatnina (EUSP) "Financial Cycles, Interest Rates, and Inequality"

4:30–5:00pm Coffee break

5:00–6:30pm Parallel sessions

History of monetary circulation in Russia and the USSR. Moderator: Danila Raskov

  • Elena Sumko (Polotsk State University, Belarus) "Informal Financial Strategies of a Post-War Belarusian Village"
  • Mikhail Beznin, Tatiana Dimoni (Vologda State University) "Monetary and Non-Monetary Mechanisms in the Russian Economic System of the 1950s and 1980s"
  • Artem Efimov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) "Peter I's Reform of Coinage: From Fiscal to Monetary Policy"
  • Konstantin Gulin (Vologda State University) "The Role of Money in the Soviet Economy"

The Philosophy of Money. Moderator: Grigory Tulchinsky

  • Aleksander Sekatsky (SPbU) "Money and the Continuum of Human Exchanges"
  • Pavel Tereshchenko (SPbU) "Eternal Debt: Glorifying the Alienation"
  • Grigory Tulchinsky (SPbU; Higher School of Economics) "Deep Semiotics and Hermeneutics in the Money Phenomenon Analysis"
  • Vladislav Ginko (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow) "Philosophy of Finance in Judaism"

Monetary Policy. Moderator: Aleksander Protasov

  • Adrien Faudot (University of Grenoble, France) "Robert Triffin and the Role of Central Bank in Its Relations with Foreign Exchange"
  • Tatiana Kotsofana (SPbU) "The Relationship Between Exchange Rate Dynamics and Inflationary Processes"
  • Aleksander Skorobogatov (Higher School of Economics) "Monetary Policies and the Russian Stock Market"
  • Dinar Sikhimbayeva (Karaganda Economic University of Kazpotrebsoyuz, Kazakhstan) "Inflation and Rent: The Impact of Rental Income on the Country's Monetary System"

Banks and the Ffinancial System. Moderator: Dmitry Kochergin

  • Andrey Vernikov (Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) "Banks and Society: Who Serves Who? (The Case of Russia)"
  • Vladimir Shulga (SPbU) "Accounting Reserves as a Tool of Macroprudential Policy"
  • Elena Kashcheeva (SPbU) "Central Bank Balance Sheet: Political and Economic Aspect"
  • Nadezhda Lvova (SPbU) "Sustainability and Universality as the Future of the Financial Services Market"

Money, Literature, Writers. Moderator: Dmitry Tokarev

  • Aleksander Borodin (Foundation "Unity," Moscow), Anastasia Grigorovskaya (Tyumen State University) "Deconstruction of the Categories 'Money' and 'Interest' in the Philosophy and Art of Ayn Rand"
  • Dmitry Tokarev (Higher School of Economics; SPbU; Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "'Money as a Living Blood of Life': A Political Physiology of Money in the Parisian Articles and Novels by Boris Poplavsky"
  • Yaroslava Shiryaeva (Institute of Economics and Law of Friedrich von Hayek) "Ayn Rand: The Anthem to Money"
  • Pavel Lysakov (SPbU) "Gogol and Money"

6:30–8:00pm Evening session. Moderator: Grigory Tulchinsky

  • Dmitry Kochergin (SPbU) "The Future of Money: Global Stablecoins and Central Bank Digital Currencies"
  • Pavel Shust (SPbU; Electronic Money Association) "Payments and Digital Transformation: How New Technologies Affect the Banking Sector"

April 28

10:00–12:00pm Morning session. Moderator: Danila Raskov

  • Vladimir Avtonomov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) "Money, Rationality, and Emotions"
  • Maurizio Lazzarato (France) "The Nature of Money? Money is Debt!"

  • Nigel Dodd (London School of Economics, UK) "Universal Basic Income and the Social Life of Money"

12:00–12:30pm Coffee break

12:30–2:00pm Parallel sessions

Phenomenology of the Spirit of Capitalism in the Works and Life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Moderator: Sergey Fokin

  • Natalia Tarasova (Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences) "The Theme of Capital in Dostoevsky's Novel Creativity and Journalism: Textual and Historiosophical Aspects"
  • Sergey Fokin (St. Petersburg State University of Economics) "Podoroga and Dostoyevsky: Mimesis and Literature as Economics of Enrichment"
  • Olga Freidson (St. Petersburg State University of Economics) "Linguocultural Characteristics of the Concept of Money and Interest in French and English"
  • Vadim Shkolnikov (Higher School of Economics) "The 'Economy' of Recognition and Beauty in Dostoevsky's Ethical System"

Money and Economic Culture. Moderator: Ilia Sidorchuk

  • Rustem Nureev (Financial University Under the Government of the Russian Federation; Higher School of Economics, Moscow) "The Middle Ages: Evolution of Views on Usury"
  • Vladimir Lobach (Polotsk State University, Belarus) "The Symbolic Status and Ritual Functions of Money in the Belarusian Traditional Culture of the Second Half of the 20th—Beginning of the 21st Century"
  • Olga Nikolaichuk (Financial University Under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow) "The Economic Culture of the Russians: How Are Households' Money Used?"
  • Ilia Sidorchuk (SPbU) "'How Many Fans of Romantic Sloppiness?': Discussion of the Budgets of Soviet Working-Class Youth in the 1920s and Early 1930s"
  • Tatiana Shishkina (SPbU; Veeam Software) "An Issue of Interest in Economic Anthropology of Gift-Exchange"

The Philosophy of Money. Moderator: Vyacheslav Kornev

  • Erlan Abulkhair (SPbU) "Money, i. e. Time"
  • Vyacheslav Kornev (Bonch-Bruevich St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications) "On the Other Side of the Money"
  • Valeria Petrenko (Tomsk State University) "Money as a 'Cultural Form:' The Subjectivity of a 'Market Pattern'"
  • Georgy Laius (SPbU) "Collection as a Suspension: Numismatics and Resistance to Virtuality of Money"

Money and Economic Behavior. Moderator: Pavel Lukichev

  • Vladimir Vaingort (Cardis Consulting, Estonia) "Money—the Language of Communication Between Personality and State" Vladimir Zyabrikov (SPbU) "Money as a Tool of Motivation"
  • Yuri Latov, Natalia Latova (Institute of Sociology, Moscow) "Man and Bank in Modern Russia (Based on the Materials of Opinion Polls of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2013–2019)"
  • Anna Lozhnikova (Tomsk State University), Ivan Rozmainsky (Higher School of Economics), Alla Geyser (Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University) "On the Impact of Risk Premium on Entrepreneurial Confidence Pavel Lukichev"
  • Pavel Lukichev (Baltic State Technical University "Voenmeh" D. F. Ustinov) "Money and Ethics: Are Experts Independent?"

2:00–2:40pm Lunch

2:40–4:00pm Afternoon session. Moderator: Aleksander Pogrebnyak

  • Viktor Mazin (SPbU) "Meaning of Money"
  • David Woodruff (London School of Economics, UK) "Max Weber's Theory of Money: Economics and Ethics"

4:00–6:00pm Parallel sessions

Monetary Theory. Moderator: Aleksander Lyaki

  • Lyudmila Malysheva (University of Missouri in Kansas City, USA) "External Instability in Transition: Applying Minsky's Theory of Financial Fragility to International Markets"
  • Ivan Rozmainsky (Higher School of Economics) "The Role of the Precautionary Motive for the Money Demand in Keynes' Theory and Some Implications from It"
  • Vsevolod Ostapenko (SPbU) "MMT vs Mainstream Through the Lens of a Dichotomy Between Monetary and Real Analysis"
  • Vasily Solodkov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow) "Is the New Monetary Theory an Alternative?"
  • Aleksander Yakovlev (St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI") "The Theory of Money in the 21st Century and Marxism"

Cryptocurrency and Digital Money. Moderator: Pavel Shust

  • Christopher Monday (Dongseo University, South Korea) "Crypto-Utopias on the March"
  • Lyudmila Alyokhina (St. Petersburg University of Management Technologies and Economics) "Digital Economy Innovations: Cryptocurrency in Light and Shadow"
  • Andrey Manuilov (North-West Expert Bureau) "The Worth, Price and Value of Digital Assets and Cryptocurrencies in the Context of Legal Concepts of Ownership"
  • Vadim Perov (SPbU) "Cryptocurrency and Ethics of Trust"

Sacrifice as Value and Capital in the Horizon of Biopolitics. Moderator: Aleksander Pogrebnyak

  • Elena Ivanenko (Samara Humanitarian Academy) "Fiat Victim! The Victim as a Fiat Value in the Horizon of Biopolitics (Based on the Movie 'Joker')"
  • Alexander Kanaev (SPbU) "Legal Interest in Russia (15th–18th Centuries): From the Byzantine Tradition to the Policy of European Modernization"
  • Marina Koretskaya (Samara Humanitarian Academy) "Economics of Sacrifice and Life as Value: Vita Sacra / Nuda Vita / Dolce Vita"
  • Elena Savenkova (Samara National Research University) "Child as Symbolic Capital. Monetization of Attention to the Child-Victim Image in Social Networks"
  • Andrey Serikov (Samara National Research University) "Life and Health Insurance as Analogues to Human Sacrifice Elements"
  • Maria Vorobyova (Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg) "Sacrifice and Self-Sacrifice—Intangible Resources of the Soviet Modernization"

Phenomenology of the Spirit of Capitalism in the Works and Life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Moderator: Sergey Fokin

  • Olga Volchek "Money, Game, Illusion or Freedom in Dostoyevsky Oeuvre as Seen by French Researchers"
  • Elena Galtsova (Gorky Institute of World Literature; Lomonosov Moscow State University; Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow) "Money of an 'Underground Man' in the Context of Interactions and Counteractions of Russian and European Cultures: Economics and Ethics as Such in Dostoevsky's 'Notes from the Underground' and Their Transposition into French, Italian and English"
  • Viktor Dmitriev (Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Higher School of Economics) "Money Levels All Inequality: What Does Arkady Save Up?"
  • Liana Dimitrieva "Money in Dostoevsky's Oeuvre in the Reception of French Scholars"

Institutional Theory of Money and Monetary Systems. Moderator: Maksim Markov

  • Mikhail Shishkin "Monetary Theory in Historical Retrospective"
  • Peter Lemeshchenko (Belarusian State University, Belarus) "Money as an Institution: Between Creation and Destruction"
  • Svetlana Kirdina-Chandler (Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) "The Mechanism of Monetary Circulation as an Object of Mesoeconomic Analysis"
  • Vyacheslav Ushankov (SPbU) "Institutional Nature of the First Money"
  • Boris Sokolov (SPbU) "Problems of Creating and Accepting a Universal Theory of Money"

6:00–6:30pm Coffee break

6:30–8:00pm Evening session. Moderator: Vsevolod Ostapenk

  • Nikolay Nenovsky (University of Picardie Jules Verne, France; Central Bank of Bulgaria) "Suppressed Inflation and Shortage in European Debt Markets"

8:00pm Summing up the Conference

Conference languages: English, and Russian