Money and Credit

This book offers a fresh and uniquely sociological perspective onmoney and credit. As basic economic institutions, money and creditare easy to overlook when they work well. When they malfunction, asthey did in the new millennium's global financial crisis,their importance becomes obvious and demands furtherinvestigation.
Bruce Carruthers and Laura Ariovich examine the social dimensionsof money and credit at both the individual and corporate levels,from the development of personal credit and a consumer society, tothe role of government in the creation of money. In clear prose,they illustrate how the overall future of the economy is governedby the financial system and the flow of capital into, and out of,firms operating in particular industrial sectors, as well as thesocial meanings money itself acquires and the ways peopledistinguish between "dirty" and "clean"money.
This accessible and engaging book will be essential reading forupper-level students of economic sociology, and those interested inhow the bills, coins and plastic in our pockets shape the world welive in.