Market societies use narratives to justify the social technology of money. As debates continue around money, debt, and the state, it is worthwhile to review three parables of money—credit money, commodity money and chartalism.
This report analyzes the history of social reformers interested in using financial technologies and institutions for egalitarian ends and explores three current-day sources of such influence: ethical shareholder activists, pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds.
Calls for unions and activists to transform Wall Street from the inside have proliferated since 2008. But when progressives organize as shareholders—the financialization of protest—good intentions inevitably run up against a fundamental obstacle: the bottom line.