Moral Economies of Money: Politics and the Monetary Constitution of Society

210 Pages·2022·4.093 MB·English

by  Jakob Feinig

MOR AL ECONOMIES OF MONE Y
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd ii 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM
CCCC UUUU RR RRRR EE NNNN CC IIII EEEE SSSS
New Thinking for Financial Times
STEFAN EICH AND MARTIJN KONINGS, EDITORS
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd iiii 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM
Moral Economies
of Money
Politics and the Monetary
Constitution of Society
JAKOB FEINIG
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Stanford, California
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd iiiiii 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2022 by Jakob Feinig. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission
of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
ISBN 9781503629172 (cloth)
ISBN 9781503633445 (paper)
ISBN 9781503633452 (electronic)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022003999
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request.
Cover art: Six dollar bank note of the United Colonies, Philadelphia, 1776.
Wood engraving (facsimile), published in 1886. iStock
Typeset by Newgen North America in 10/15 Janson Text
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd iivv 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM
To Ana and Irene, with love.
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd vv 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM
This page intentionally left blank
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
INTRODUCTION: MORAL ECONOMIES OF
MONEY AND MONETARY SILENCING 1
1 SETTLER DEMOCRACY AS A MONETARY SCHOOL:
TOWARD MORAL ECONOMIES OF MONEY 14
2 MORAL ECONOMIES OF MONEY 38
3 MONETARY SILENCING AND THE ROMANCE OF
UNMEDIATED EXCHANGES 60
4 GREENBACK MORAL ECONOMIES 83
5 WHAT KINDS OF PEOPLE SHOULD MONEY USERS BE? 104
6 MONETARY SILENCING AS A NEW DEAL LEGACY 118
CONCLUSION: FROM NEW DEAL SILENCING
TO A MORAL ECONOMY OF MONEY 143
Notes 149
References 161
Index 183
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd vviiii 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
This book is my answer to questions about money creation that I began
to articulate at the University of Vienna, where I learned about global
and European money politics, regulation theory, and political economy
more generally from Johannes Jäger, Karin Fischer, Joachim Becker, and
Andreas Novy. Philip Taucher was an important part of this process; he
helped me think about political economy through a Freirian lens. When I
started graduate school at Binghamton, I wanted to know why there were
no broad and inclusive public controversies about money creation in the
Eurozone. A Social Science Research Council grant enabled me to do pre-
liminary interviews with key informants and learn from Sheila Jasanoff and
Frédéric Lebaron.
I soon realized I had to fi nd a historical case study to understand pop-
ular monetary knowledge and ignorance as an outcome, not a given. In
one of his lectures, Andreas Novy had mentioned Greenbackers and bi-
metallists, and I began devouring the literature on nineteenth-century US
Populism. In a frenzied process that took several years, I began making
sense of eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century controversies but also
expanded my research into the New Deal era. I then came across Mod-
ern Monetary Theory (MMT) and realized L. Randall Wray agreed with
ix
SS88006644--FFeeiinniigg..iinndddd iixx 55//2266//2222 66::5522 PPMM