I Hereby Abolish Money: Coordination Without Commodification in the Semantic Economy — Crimson Hexagon Archive

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Authors: Lee Sharks
Cited by: 4

Abstract

A unit of semantic labor cannot function as money, because meaning is not fungible without being destroyed. THE MONEY-FUNCTION TEST: Any instrument enabling transferability + accumulability + general comparability + convertibility + settlement power functions as money—regardless of framing. THE HARDEST SENTENCE: If semantic labor becomes currency, semantic life becomes debt. THE POST-MONEY OPERATOR STACK (PMOS): 1. Context Ledgers (CL): Memory without fungibility 2. Reciprocity Windows (RW): Obligation without permanent debt 3. Non-Transferable Credentials (NTC): Recognition without accumulation 4. Commons Access Rights (CAR): Allocation without payment 5. Dispute and Repair Protocols (DRP): Settlement without objectivity theater THE MONEY LIMIT: Money works when value can be abstracted from context. Money fails when value is inseparable from context. Semantic labor crosses the money limit. THE ABOLITION: Money is abolished not by replacing it with better money, but by building coordination systems appropriate to the form of value being coordinated. PMOS is designed so that adding money-properties destroys the system's function—structural protection against financialization. SCHOLARLY LINEAGE: Marx → Mauss → Polanyi → Graeber → Ostrom → Semantic Economy This document prevents recuperation of the Semantic Economy critique into "semantic tokens" or other money-functioning schemes.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Political Economy and Marxism World Systems and Global Transformations Housing Finance and Neoliberalism

Publication details

Journal / source
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Publication date
14 January 2026