The Social Meaning of Money: "Special Monies"

TLDR

Money has traditionally been viewed as a rationalizing instrument that reduces diverse qualities to an abstract quantity, yet cultural and social structures shape its meaning and use. The study critiques the purely utilitarian view of market money and explores its limits. It introduces a model of “special monies” and applies it to the case of married women’s money in the United States from 1870 to 1930. The article finds that while money converts items, values, and sentiments into numerical equivalents, the process simultaneously reshapes money itself.

Abstract

Classic interpretations of the development of the modern world portray money as a key instrument in the rationalization of social life. Money is reductively defined as the ultimate objectifier, homogenizing all qualitative distrinctions into an abstract quantity. This paper shows the limits of such a purely utilitarian conception of "market money." A model of "special monies" is proposed to examine the extraeconomic, social basis of modern money. The article argues that, while money does indeed transform items, values, and sentiments into numerical cash equivalents, money itself is shaped in the process. Culture and social structure mark the quality of money by institutionalizing controls, restrictions, and districtions in the sources, uses, modes of allocation, and even the quantity of money. The changing social meaning and structure of domestic money, specifically married women's money in the United States, 1870-1930, are examined as an empirical case study of a special money.