Let’s get fiscal: The social relations of finance and technological change in Aztec and Colonial Mexico

Millhauser, John K.

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101196

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The term financial is not used in the sense of ethnographies that investigate today's financial industry with its reach into the developing world (Hart & Ortiz, 2014) or how the modern financial industry structurally impoverishes most societies' citizens (Robbins, 2020). Nor is it meant as in Goetzmann's (2016, 5–6) focus on how finance moves resources in time, like a mortgage that allows one to use a house immediately but pay for it over a lifetime (see also Millhauser, 2020, 2–3). My definition is in the sense of the New Oxford American Dictionary that finances are “the monetary resources and affairs of a country, organization or person,” from the Old French finer (make an end, settle a debt) and from fin (end).…”

Section: Distinct Realms Of Value: Social Government and Private Acco...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cultural anthropologists have, of course, explored heterodox economic theories of money for decades (e.g., Bloch & Parry, 1989; Graeber, 2011; Hart, 1986, 2001; Maurer, 2006; Muzio & Robbins, 2017; Peebles, 2010). A recent choir of archaeologists have also engaged with heterodox theories to understand the origins and function of money in the past (e.g., Baron, 2018; Baron & Millhauser, 2021; Millhauser, 2020; Sampeck, 2021; Smith, 2004; Smith et al, 2012; Souleles, 2020; von Reden, 2010). Such heterodox perspectives emphasize that evidence from the ancient world has a crucial role to play in documenting how money structured past political economies, with implications for better understanding what money does in the present.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding money; Or, why social and financial accounting should not be conflated

Rosenswig

2024

Economic Anthropology

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This article defines social and financial money as distinct institutions that account for different realms of value. I present a fundamental dichotomy among economists' where orthodox theory defines money as a medium of exchange whereas heterodox chartalist economists characterize it as a unit of account. I argue that (pre)historical data provides clear evidence in support of the heterodox position. The unit of account function of money is exemplified by how wampum accounted for social debts and was expanded to also serve financial functions by European colonial governments. The heterodox position is further evidenced with the metal coins that denominated Rome's financial money that transitioned to serve primarily social purposes in early Anglo‐Saxon Britain. Focusing on the accounting function of social and financial monies transcends the Polanyian special‐versus‐general‐purpose framework that often still structures archaeological practice. With this framework of money defined by what gives it value, I then evaluate recent claims that financial money was integral to the political economies of Bronze Age Europe. I conclude that the adoption of the orthodox assumption that money is primarily a medium of exchange inhibits understanding of what money is and how the political economies of ancient societies were organized.

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Section: Distinct Realms Of Value: Social Government and Private Acco...mentioning

confidence: 99%