Peirce and the Semiotics of Money: Indexicality, Labor, and Capitalism

This article explores the semiotics of money from a Peircean perspective, focusing on indexicality and translation in the interpretation of monetary phenomena within capitalism. Based on Peirce's semiotics, various studies have been conducted on money as a sign, ranging from stock market indices to its relationship with institutions and markets. These analyses agree that money has shifted from being an index tied to a tangible object, such as precious metal, to becoming a self-referential sign in contemporary economics. However, the specialized literature has overlooked the relationship between money and labor. This article argues that translation, as a fundamental semiotic operation, allows for understanding the link between labor and money within political economy. Thus, it proposes a reading of money that includes its productive base, integrating sign theory into sociological and anthropological debates on the political economy of capitalism.