Years ago my dearest friend (yo) visited Karl Marx’s home town of Trier, in Germany, and brought me back a zero-euro bill. I carry it in my wallet always. It is a convincing counterfeit, with the feel of « real » currency—that money feel, a paper of linen and cotton rather than wood pulp. It is a bit faded and wrinkled now.

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The zero-euro bill—a fetish of a fetish, a commodified meta-fetish—proves the adage that parody is the sincerest form of flattery. But it shows some cracks, too, despite itself. It might stir a nostalgia-in-advance in an era of odious crypto-currency; or a salutary doubt in the cold « cashless society » toward which we have been steered.