See the rest of our symposium on The Making of Global Capitalism.

The cover of The Making of Global Capitalism is framed by the border of the US dollar bill. Nothing symbolizes better what the book is about — the interface between state and economy, and in particular between the American government and the economic system of the whole world. “One of capitalism’s defining characteristics, compared with pre-capitalist societies, is the legal and organizational differentiation between state and economy.”

Nothing says commerce like money. But cash is stamped with the signs of sovereignty and references to public institutions and laws: a portrait of a national hero, emblems of Treasury and the Federal Reserve, signatures of particular policymakers, a legal declaration (“This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private”), and the marks of the bureaucratic organization of its production — serial numbers and anti-counterfeit devices.