Midas Touch: On the Demand for Money in History

This lecture is drawn from a book-in-progress on the global history of money from ancient times to the present, told through the recurrence of the ancient Greek myth of the golden touch of King Midas. The myth speaks to an insatiable demand for the possession of money, leading to a new fountain of supply. For thousands of years money was scarce. Today, in a world of fiat money, it is as if the ancient myth has become true. The talk introduces the problem of the demand for money in history, and seeks — drawing from Keynes — to clarify demand as a category of analysis across economic but also social, cultural, and political life. The heart of the talk narrates the first, ancient chapter in the history of monetary abundance, focusing on the historical King Midas and the "death economy" built around him, as well as the appearance and meaning of the Greek myth in the context of the ancient Greek invention of coinage — which, driven by a new civic demand for money, transformed the monetary relationship between present and future. Morphological similarities between this ancient moment and other chapters in the history of monetary abundance, including our own, are explored.

Jonathan Levy is Professor of History at Sciences Po, Paris. A historian of the United States, capitalism, and the economy, he is the author most recently of Ages of American Capitalism: A History of the United States and The Real Economy: History and Theory.

Suggested preparatory reading:
Jonathan Levy. 2025. "The General Theory of the Economy." In: The Real Economy: History and Theory, 200–227. Princeton University Press.