In the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, bankers thrust the disciplinary power of the state between debtors and creditors. They used their influence to criminalise the act of writing an uncovered cheque as fraud. From 1932 until 1984, debtors who wrote bad cheques to guarantee loans faced serious consequences, from fines to jail time. By examining approximately 115 arrest records, Chapter 4 uncovers the early history of financialisation, as more people began to use new financial instruments. When people wrote uncovered cheques, some of them experienced first-hand the growing pains that came with participating in financial modernity. Cheques represented the new dynamics of economic citizenship at mid-century, as the political elite of the PRI shored up the interests of bankers at the expense of bank account holders. As this chapter shows, the criminalisation of bad cheques facilitated the emergence of financial capitalism by establishing new kinds of property rights and creating a new white-collar crime. In the process, political leaders introduced new forms of coercion into the debtor–creditor relationship that left debtors more vulnerable than ever.

This chapter explores inclusions and exclusions embedded within the Omani economy as experienced by citizens and foreigners. The chapter shows, first, that contestations around labour market belonging and experiences emerge within the local structures of segmentation and the global nature of Oman’s labour market. Second, in order to understand economic belonging and citizenship in the Gulf, class has to take a central role. The production of difference and competing identities of local regionalism, tribal and community affiliation, religion, interior and coastal cultures, race, heritage, and gender all matter but need to be understood alongside the intervening variable of class. The subjectivity of experiences and perceptions of inclusion and exclusion exposes how the politics and practice of difference in global capitalism produces tensions, value, and forms of power that manifest in labour and class relations. These dynamics also generate resistance and contestation around the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.

For many postcolonies, a national currency—like a constitution, flag, or passport—was a necessary accompaniment to independence. Money and credit were more than potent symbols of decolonization; they were means of constituting a new political order. This Introduction argues that the monetary regimes established in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania aimed to remake their independent societies, turning savings, loans, and other financial instruments into the infrastructure of citizenship and statecraft. These instruments tried to create a “government of value” in which personal interest and collective advance were aligned through mechanisms that were simultaneously ethical and economic, cultural and political. They did so because colonial subjects experienced empire as not only political domination but also a constraint on economic liberties. Yet, the ensuing decolonization was at best partial, not least because the value of national currencies depended on the accumulation of foreign money. Moreover, the independent political economy of East Africa created new inequalities and divisions. Struggles over money, credit, and commodities would animate a series of struggles between bankers and bureaucrats, farmers and smugglers in the coming decades. By detailing the notion of the “moneychanger state,” this chapter provides the conceptual frameworks to understand these conflicts in new ways.

This chapter concludes the book by reflecting on its broader implications. It delineates the politics behind credit regimes and reflects on the underlying political coalitions and dynamics behind credit markets’ complementary and substitutive relationships with welfare states. It then discusses how credit markets amplify old and create new forms of social exclusion and inequality through discrimination, credit scoring, or differential credit access. As credit markets have grown more influential and increasingly determine life chances, equal and fair access to credit is now a prerequisite for full participation and inclusion in labor markets, housing markets, as well as educational opportunities and wealth-building trajectories. The chapter ends by discussing potential ways in which credit markets and welfare states can work together, not against each other, to ensure a fairer and more equal distribution of social risks and opportunities.

This chapter lays out the social policy theory of everyday borrowing. It discusses the extent to which welfare states protect against social risks and provide social investments. In many countries such services have become insufficient in light of fragmented employment patterns and life course trajectories, resulting in increased demand for private coping mechanisms to address financial gaps due to volatile incomes, earnings losses, and rising expenditures. It introduces the concept of credit regimes, arguing that the institutional structures and regulatory and policy environments shape credit regimes’ permissiveness and households’ access to credit. The chapter explains how the constellation of welfare state and credit regime structures shapes the role of credit as a coping mechanism. When credit regimes are permissive, households borrow to address social risks and use credit as social investments. Credit either substitutes for or complements welfare states depending on which groups social policies protect and support. By contrast, when credit regimes are restrictive, households draw on savings, utilize family support, or cut expenditures because the borrowing option is precluded. The reliance on credit markets instead of social policies reflects a much more fundamental transformation of social rights, social responsibilities, and the allocation of resources and risks.