The International Regulation of Money Laundering
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6189596 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mónica Serrano (0000-0003-1190-5406), Paul Kenny |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 433-439 |
| Publication date | 2003-08-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Global Governance A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1075-2846 • E-ISSN: 1942-6720 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/19426720-00904004 |
| OpenAlex | W119256135 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
This vile paper-money and funding system; this of Dutch descent, begotten by Bishop Burnet and born in hell; this has turned everything into a gamble. There are hundreds of men who live by being agents to carry on gambling ... many of gamblers live in country; they write up to their gambling agent, whom they call their stockbroker; he gambles according to their order; and they receive profit or stand to loss. Is it possible to conceive a viler calling than that of an agent for carrying on of gambling! And yet vagabonds call themselves gentlemen. ********** So English radical William Cobbett wrote in his Rural Rides of 1830. (1) People do not write like Cobbett (or Carlyle, Dickens, and Marx) anymore. Not about hellish systems of paper money, at any rate. Technical prudence comes more naturally now than systematic denunciation; vigor is applied to policy initiatives and convention drafting, rather than to prophecies of convulsion, jeremiads against villains and vagabonds, the unhanged knaves of paper-money. The international monetary is, to be sure, now more complicated than question of national debt for Cobbett, yet we get less agitated about phenomena such as money laundering. We put them into that ethical side category of matters for international It is interesting, if idle, to speculate on tongue-lashings Cobbett would have administered to walking trust accounts, smurfing, creative accountancy, and cashing in casino chips, to name but some of laundering techniques masterfully described by Michael Levi in a recent state-of-the-art article. (2) Not only do we no longer live in a world where not to be a gentleman was a withering reproach; we also live in a world of euphemisms, such as money laundering itself. As a subject of regulation, it leads our eyes away from immediate sources of serious crime to their mediated proceeds. (3) As a metaphor, money laundering implies that money can indeed come out from wash whiter than white: it blends so smoothly with legitimate financial investment activities that we are hard put to tell difference. Unfortunately perhaps, this makes international banking appear to work as a new and improved detergent. Understandably then, one runs up against a paradox when approaching sources of crime from perspective of proceeds. Dirty money is doing pretty much same thing as clean money--moving around in search of profits. Or, in a crisper definition, such as William Gaddis's: 'Money is credit, get 'It's what?' 'Tells you your money should work for you ... trick's to get other people's money to work for you, get that?' (4) Getting other people's money to work for them would be one definition of criminality of money laundering were it not so akin to what pension trust managers for example, as well as corporate tax evaders, also do. Once dirty money is in wash it is as clean as any other; we are back to Cobbett's system of gambling and fictitious money. This brings us to second pertinent euphemism, regulation. We have wars against crime and terrorism, as well as prohibition and eradication at source of drugs, but we speak of cautious regulation of proceeds of crime. Regulation is a fence-sitting word. At one end of spectrum, it suggests exacting and strong rule; in middle, a moderate adaptation to requirements; and at other end, maintenance of status quo. The international regulation of money laundering to date can be set midway between middle and latter end of spectrum, Regulation thus means protecting order while accepting dysfunctional components of that order. The basis for this claim rests upon our last, least heroic of euphemisms, results. In technical literature, results are almost always, and by definition, modest. When they are extremely modest we can infer that they have much to be modest about
Denunciation · Economics · Law and economics · Money Laundering · Political science · Politics · Prudence · Sociology · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,38 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2024 (15) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |