A nne F leming . City of Debtors

“The root of the problem was simple: ‘Men, now and then, must have money.’ The hard part was figuring out how to grant . . . credit at reasonable prices” (1). This tension is at the heart of Anne Fleming’s City of Debtors, a vivid, balanced, and careful book that examines a century of efforts by reformers, lenders, and activists to strike the right balance in protecting borrowers against predation by lenders while not excessively constraining the availability of small-dollar credit. The regulation of small-dollar loans to marginalized borrowers had real and sometimes dire practical effects, yet the stakes were often determined in courts and legislatures, and the language used was legal codes and contract terms. Fleming not only tracks the details of these debates, but she poses crucial questions about the capacity of law to shape lending markets. “What is the meaning of justice within capitalism?” (3). What this exhaustive history makes clear is that it is the law that has circumscribed the perimeter of this particular credit market. Moreover, while legal codes and judicial decisions have shaped the small-dollar lending market, the fight has also shaped legal doctrine.

Capitalism · Doctrine · Economic Justice · Economics · Law and economics · Legislature · Liberian dollar · Political science · Finance · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

• Anne Fleming’s History of Law and Consumer Finance

  Open Access•Victoria Barnes•Enterprise & Society•2021

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