Making Money

Making Money examines the interrelation between problem gambling, drug addiction and shopaholism on the one hand and contemporary capitalism on the other. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from neurobiological research to Marx's theory of surplus value and from Andersen's tale of "The Princess and the Pea" to interviews with drug addicts, the author dissects three key components of modern capitalism - money, the body and the commodity - in order to establish that the gambler, the drug addict and the shopaholic are, in the end, both a post-ideological avant-garde and a destitute waste-product of capitalism.