Money, Moral Authority, and the Politics of Creditworthiness

Abstract

This article moves beyond current controversies on the nature of money by suggesting that a general social process allows different kinds of organizations and networks-from states to banks to local communities-to produce currencies: that is, the articulation of criteria of creditworthiness, or what I call the exercise of moral authority. Bankers specialize in moral authority, but when that authority is contested, challenging groups must articulate alternative criteria of creditworthiness for their currencies to become stable and acceptable. I illustrate these processes with historical material from the postbellum United States, which I use to discuss why the federal government failed to create a stable financial system, and why local bankers engaged in a process of financial innovation that further destabilized money. I conclude with reflections on the shifting structural sources of moral authority, which have made the local level a springboard for destabilizing financial innovations.

Race, Power and Economic Extraction in Benton Harbor, MI

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