Money and the Extension of Morals
The Case of the Soviet Union
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6251497 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joachim Zweynert (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 115-129 |
| Publication date | 2012-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Critical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0891-3811 • E-ISSN: 1933-8007 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08913811.2012.684480 |
| OpenAlex | W2006293887 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 23 |
Functioning markets require a state that will enforce property rights; contracts mediated by money; and the prevalence of a certain type of morality that prevents people from cheating in complex exchange relationships. Monetary exchange abstracts from the personal loyalties that bind small groups together, but at the same time it creates an overarching commitment to norms that bind people more loosely in national societies—as long as monetary exchanges are enforced by the state. In the Soviet Union, conversely, the abolition of money as a universal medium of exchange led both to a deterioration of the norms of impersonal morality and to a loss of state capacity. The state lost control of the economy to informal, personally binding economic networks, and it lost its monopoly on violence in competition with sub-state, personal enforcers of impersonal economic commitments between these networks. Thus, capitalism can be seen as diverting people from norms of loyalty to the members of the relatively small groups of which they are a part toward loyalty to the abstract norms that make it possible for anonymous people to deal with each other reliably
Capitalism · Cheating · Competition (biology · Economics · Extension (predicate logic · Law and economics · Loyalty · Market economy · Monopoly · Morality · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychology · Social Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory
Russia's economy of favours
Money Unmade
The Unmaking of Soviet Life
Violence and Social Orders
Understanding the Process of Economic Change
The role of the state and the hierarchy of money
The Fatal Conceit
Factory and Manager in the USSR
Bowling Alone
Social Traps and the Problem of Trust
What is Social Capital? A Comprehensive Review of the Concept
Promises Made and Promises Broken in the Russian Transition
The Myth of the Plan
Making Democracy Work
General Economic History
Allocation under Dictatorship
The Passions and the Interests
The Strength of Weak Ties
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2014 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |