Commoncoin: A Semiotic Perspective on its Role in Cooperative Production Relations

The theme of the commons has contemporaneously become a significant area of discussion and
interest, particularly in the critique and exploration of alternatives to the logic of capitalist
accumulation. A predominant part of the discourse has revolved around the commons, understood
in terms of goods (ecological, social, cultural, knowledge). However, it is crucial to emphasize
that the commons are not things but social relations. Within the broad topic of the commons,
there are initiatives related to common currencies (commoncoin), presented as experiments in
appropriating productive forces aimed at the development of alternative technology. Considering
that money is a coordinate of unquestionable privilege from the semiotic perspective, semiotic
literature has not delved deeply into the semiotic role of money, nor into the meaning
management of a complementary currency. This article aims to propose a semiotic theory of
commons money from the Marxist and vitalist perspective of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
To achieve this, a critique is developed against the representative model commonly used to
address the semiotic nature of currency, in favor of embracing the notions of extraction and
summation suggested by Deleuze and Guattari. The article argues that the concepts of the abstract
and the concrete play a significant role in the materialist dialectical method, serving to reflect on
community relations related to currency.