My friend Danny made a convincing case that he represented the invisible hand of the marketplace, i.e., the violence that underlies the capitalist economy, and that he punished anyone who tried to keep money out of circulation.
Can you explain that further? Does your friend think that Llewelyn would have hid the money under his bed permanently?
Well, it was my friend's argument, one I don't entirely agree with, but I'll try. Actually, I think they're two different arguments: one, that Chigurh is the latent violence that underlies capitalist economies - that is, that exchange is a way for people to take things they want from one another without blood being shed. When people refuse this exchange, then Whoa Differences! The other one is based on Lewis Hyde's
The Gift, another book that has been on my reading list for years but I have yet to read, so take this with a grain of salt. But Hyde's book is about Gift economies, and basically I think he's saying that resources or capital or whatever have to constantly be in circulation. When capital is hoarded, things start to go bad. I honestly don't know where the consumer model of spending and debt fits into this worldview. But this does make a little sense in re. the depiction of the "old" world of the Sheriff et al, and of the Mexican "Other" in the film. That is, gift economies are possible in small, homogeneous communities, but those tend to be racist and mistrustful of outsiders. On the other hand, capitalism does have the tendency to neutralize differences - this is not to say that capitalism is free of racism, but it does tend to favor equal playing fields and neutral, quantifiable methods of exchange - it makes things like globalization possible. But it is savage and brutal and makes the old gift economies impossible.
How'd I do? Still awake?
Edited for grammar and typos