Giorgio Agamben: Money and Memory
Today I am providing my English translation of a short article by Giorgio Agamben, originally in Italian, first published on QuodLibet.it on Tuesday 23rd September 2025 and then on ComeDonChisciotte.org a week after, on Tuesday 30th September 2025.
(Italics original, bold emphasis mine).
Moneta, the Latin term from which our [Italian] word derives, comes from moneo, “to remember, to think,” and was originally the translation of the Greek Mnemosyne, which means “memory.” Moneta thus became the name in Rome of the temple where the goddess of memory was worshipped and coins were minted. It is from this etymological link between currency and memory that we should view the resurgence of discussions today on the abolition of the single European currency and the recovery of each country’s traditional currency.
Underlying the urgent “monetary” issue is an equally urgent issue of memory, namely the rediscovery of the memory of each of the European countries which, by abdicating sovereignty over their own currency, have unwittingly also abolished their own heritage of memories.
If currency is first and foremost the repository of memory, if currency, insofar as it can pay for everything and stand in for everything, is responsible for the individual and collective memory of the past and the dead, then it is not surprising that the breakdown of the relationship between past and present that defines our time gives rise to the monetary problem with unavoidable urgency.
When a distinguished economist declares that the only way for France (as perhaps for every European country) to emerge from its crisis is to regain authority over its own currency, he is in fact suggesting that the country should rediscover its relationship with its own memory.
The crisis of the European community and its currency, which is now upon us, is a crisis of memory, and memory – it is important to remember – is an eminently political matter for every country.
There is no politics without memory, but European memory is as insubstantial as its single currency.
By coincidence, I've recently been looking at the trending concept of
"toxic nostalgia"...but even if I hadn't, this discussion of monetary nationalism would seem as much a warning as a welcoming.
Memory is fundamental!
Thank you!