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Borneman has brought together works by German, English, and French analysts, including Ferenczi, Jones, Abraham, and Róheim, in a collection of papers inspired by Freud's Character and Anal Erotism. This basic paper stimulated the interest of psychoanalysts in the problem of money and its relation to dirt in the unconscious, in dreams, language, and myths. A bibliography of one hundred twenty-three psychoanalytic and psychological papers on the history and origins of money completes the book. Since such a collection has not been presented before, the volume is useful for anyone interested in studying a phenomenon in which we can trace a serviceable societal invention to infantile origins.
The author adds his own criticism to the reprinted papers in his book. Borneman, who has published a number of books on applied psychoanalysis, studied with Róheim. Róheim traced the invention of money to biological anal drives only; he did not accept the influence of realistic needs which derived from the division of labor and led to barter and eventually to the practical invention of money. Borneman's criticism of Róheim's interesting but one-sided theory primarily follows Fenichel's paper on the drive to amass wealth.1 Money seems to be closer to the drives than are other products of civilization, but the basic problem is the same with all. How did man create cultural products and achievements in which we can still see expressions of our drives, defenses against them, restrictions, and sublimations?
Borneman does not seem to appreciate the difference between neurosis and cultural developments, in the genesis of which we find infantile and partial drive origins. To him, the invention of money is of neurotic origin. The capitalist system shows 'unambiguous signs of a