I recommend, of course, Alf Hornborg's The Power of the Machine on the "solvent" nature of money and the meaning of "solvency".  Money makes it possible to equate values which cannot sanely be equated -- as the quotable bit goes, to trade rainforests for CocaCola.  As soon as both are merely price-tagged items, there is no restraint on swapping one for the other.  Alf also exposes the myth of comparative advantage and "free trade," pointing out that raw materials costs always have to be set (by the dominant colonial/industrial "partner" at the core) artificially low, for the whole shebang to keep lurching along.

we've been muttering about a wide-field critique of money over at FS but it looks like you've scooped us...

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...