1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809590303321

Autore

Polillo Simone <1978->

Titolo

Conservatives versus wildcats [[electronic resource] ] : a sociology of financial conflict / / Simone Polillo

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Stanford, California, : Stanford University Press, 2013

ISBN

0-8047-8555-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (308 p.)

Disciplina

306.3

Soggetti

Banks and banking - Social aspects

Credit - Social aspects

Finance - Social aspects

Banks and banking - Social aspects - United States - History - 19th century

Banks and banking - Social aspects - Italy - History - 19th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Prologue -- Introduction -- 1. Money, Banks, and Creditworthiness -- 2. Banking and Finance as Organized Conflict -- 3. Institutions and the Struggle over Creditworthiness in the Nineteenth-Century United States -- 4. Wildcats, Reputations, and the Formation of the Federal Reserve -- 5. Italian Elites and the Centralization of Creditworthiness -- 6. Italian Creditworthiness -- 7. Conclusions -- Appendix. Historical Variation in Banking Power -- References -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

For decades, the banking industry seemed to be a Swiss watch, quietly ticking along. But the recent financial crisis hints at the true nature of this sector. As Simone Polillo reveals in Conservatives Versus Wildcats, conflict is a driving force. Conservative bankers strive to control money by allying themselves with political elites to restrict access to credit. Barriers to credit create social resistance, so rival bankers—wildcats—attempt to subvert the status quo by using money as a tool for breaking existing boundaries. For instance, wildcats may increase the circulation of existing currencies, incorporate new actors in financial markets, or produce altogether new financial instruments to create



change. Using examples from the economic and social histories of 19th-century America and Italy, two decentralized polities where challenges to sound banking originated from above and below, this book reveals the collective tactics that conservative bankers devise to legitimize strict boundaries around credit—and the transgressive strategies that wildcat bankers employ in their challenge to this restrictive stance.