The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization

The institutions which grant credit today can be considered to be an example of what Max Weber describes as the typical rationalization of modern age. Such a rationalization would bring a lack of reflection on what should be the ultimate significance of certain technical means, which are confused wi...

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Autor principal: Domenico Cortese
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Publicado: Editura ASE Bucuresti 2017
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:c7535b064b354f40969d57c21085e9ee2021-12-02T06:18:07ZThe dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization1843-22981844-8208https://doaj.org/article/c7535b064b354f40969d57c21085e9ee2017-05-01T00:00:00Z https://jpe.ro/pdf.php?id=7789 https://doaj.org/toc/1843-2298https://doaj.org/toc/1844-8208The institutions which grant credit today can be considered to be an example of what Max Weber describes as the typical rationalization of modern age. Such a rationalization would bring a lack of reflection on what should be the ultimate significance of certain technical means, which are confused with a value-in-itself of a social context. The paper highlight the fact that the function of credit consistent with individuals’ ‘ultimate ends’ seems to be that of a temporal coordination between the ‘bargaining wills’ of different individuals who aim at obtaining the highest benefit by means of the utility of their products and the products of their peers. But the current epoch has favored the elevation of historically determined features of credit-issuing to ultimate ends. Referring, among other sources, to a report by the Bank of England and to studies by Neo-Keynesian authors such as Stiglitz, this essay establishes that the consequence of the current private structure of credit-issuing is that the ultimate end of credit does not coincide with maximization and economic reciprocity but with the assessment of a risk which is distinctly private. Also, since in this structure Central Bank acts as the bank of all commercial banks, credit granting can be read as being in function of the availability – within a circumscribed economic web – of a specific credit ‘raw material’ which has a price: central bank’s liquidity. This situation puts a deep philosophical problem into the limelight, since any ‘existential’ preferability of the current model of credit issuing can only be explained as an alienation.Domenico CorteseEditura ASE BucurestiarticleMax Weberrationalizationfinancial systemcreditmoney creationEconomics as a scienceHB71-74DEENFRJournal of Philosophical Economics, Vol X, Iss 2, Pp 65-101 (2017)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language DE
EN
FR
topic Max Weber
rationalization
financial system
credit
money creation
Economics as a science
HB71-74
spellingShingle Max Weber
rationalization
financial system
credit
money creation
Economics as a science
HB71-74
Domenico Cortese
The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization
description The institutions which grant credit today can be considered to be an example of what Max Weber describes as the typical rationalization of modern age. Such a rationalization would bring a lack of reflection on what should be the ultimate significance of certain technical means, which are confused with a value-in-itself of a social context. The paper highlight the fact that the function of credit consistent with individuals’ ‘ultimate ends’ seems to be that of a temporal coordination between the ‘bargaining wills’ of different individuals who aim at obtaining the highest benefit by means of the utility of their products and the products of their peers. But the current epoch has favored the elevation of historically determined features of credit-issuing to ultimate ends. Referring, among other sources, to a report by the Bank of England and to studies by Neo-Keynesian authors such as Stiglitz, this essay establishes that the consequence of the current private structure of credit-issuing is that the ultimate end of credit does not coincide with maximization and economic reciprocity but with the assessment of a risk which is distinctly private. Also, since in this structure Central Bank acts as the bank of all commercial banks, credit granting can be read as being in function of the availability – within a circumscribed economic web – of a specific credit ‘raw material’ which has a price: central bank’s liquidity. This situation puts a deep philosophical problem into the limelight, since any ‘existential’ preferability of the current model of credit issuing can only be explained as an alienation.
format article
author Domenico Cortese
author_facet Domenico Cortese
author_sort Domenico Cortese
title The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization
title_short The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization
title_full The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization
title_fullStr The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization
title_full_unstemmed The dominion of means over ends. Modern bank credit and Max Weber’s irrational rationalization
title_sort dominion of means over ends. modern bank credit and max weber’s irrational rationalization
publisher Editura ASE Bucuresti
publishDate 2017
url https://doaj.org/article/c7535b064b354f40969d57c21085e9ee
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