The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies

by Viviana A. Zelizer, Nigel Dodd (Foreword)

A dollar is a dollar―or so most of us believe. Indeed, it is part of the ideology of our time that money is a single, impersonal instrument that impoverishes social life by reducing relations to cold, hard cash. After all, it's just money. Or is it? Distinguished social scientist and prize-winning author Viviana Zelizer argues against this conventional wisdom. She shows how people have invented their own forms of currency, earmarking money in ways that baffle market theorists, incorporating funds into webs of friendship and family relations, and otherwise varying the process by which spending and saving takes place. Zelizer concentrates on domestic transactions, bestowals of gifts and charitable donations in order to show how individuals, families, governments, and businesses have all prescribed social meaning to money in ways previously unimagined.

Genres: Economics, Sociology, Nonfiction, History, Finance, Money, Anthropology

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

Reviews

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title is a bit misleading: rather than being an analysis of "alternative" currencies per se, it's largely a history of US welfare policy between 1870 and 1930. The introductory chapter does take sociology to task for believing - from Marx on - shibboleths about money as an all-pervasive force of rationalization, stripping affect from human relations in favor of a unitary, uniform means of calculating market price.

The case material - which takes up more of the book than is the norm for academic monographs - is fascinating and exceptionally well-written. I breezed through the entire book in a morning, despite an almost complete lack of interest in the history of US welfare practices.

One significant shortcoming of the book is acknowledged by the author: while a significant portion of her argument addresses gendered and class differences in the nature and treatment of money, ethnicity gets a brief nod in the final chapter, and race isn't addressed at all. A book at least this long could be written on the history of money with respect to Native Americans, and probably many more on that of African Americans in the two generations after the Civil War. Obviously, no one book can address everything, but at least some acknowledgement that these other cases might be materially different, or some contrast on how authorities' attitudes towards welfare differed across ethnic/racial categories in the 19th Century would greatly have benefited the work.

I'm looking forward to reading more of Zelizer: this was an early work, and she seems to have gone in interesting directions in the 20 years since this was written.

[Julio César · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luckily, sociology has always a card on its sleeve, ready to wake you up from the sleep in which we, its professionals, are sometimes immersed. In a classic essay, Viviana Zelizer builds an outstanding and mind-blowing research to demonstrate a simple fact: money is not the all-evening factor of social universalizing that early XXth century theorists, like Simmel, thought it would be. Far from it, multiple currencies and coining of monies spread from everywhere. The book concentrates on three main themes: domestic currencies (occurring inside the homes), gift monies and poor relief/ aid. Analysing the USA from 1870 to 1930 and showing a wonderful scholarly handle of the literature (theoretical and empirical), like it always happens with good books The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies hoards many secrets to those researching the most dissimilar subjects of social life.

[Mary Anne Shew · Rating 4 out of 5]

While academic in tone, and therefore a little hard to read on places, this is a terrific book about how ordinary people think about money: where they get it, how they use it, how they decide or use it. It’s a useful counterpoint to the many books that talk about the “economy” as if people always make rational, logical decisions about money. This book spawned a fabulous discussion in one of my book clubs.

[JG · Rating 3 out of 5]

Instead: El Significado Social de los Precios

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I thought this was a wonderful and well researched book on the social life of money. I especially loved the chapters on the way money changes its meaning when it enters homes and relationships. I also enjoyed the chapter on welfare and charity. I found some parts a little repetitive but it is still a great book to encourage critical thinking about how each dollar or pound is not all alike. We make many different kinds of monies to manage our financial lives.