ABSTRACT
Global finance goes back a long way in time, and is by no means confined to the modern West. Like the history of globalization itself, global financial processes and institutions have evolved over centuries, even millennia. They are integral not simply to the development of global markets and economic systems, but also in the rise of effective states, and in the development of new cultures of economic expansion and transformation. Finance presupposes the existence of money. And it is money, as
Niall Ferguson points out in The Ascent of Money (2008) that ‘crystallizes’ relationships between lenders and borrowers through provision of credit. Such processes involve financiers of various kinds as an increasingly distinct and influential occupational group. Max Weber, the pioneering historical sociologist of economic life, is one of a number of observers who have drawn attention to conflicts between creditors and debtors within the history of monetized economies. The profit-seeking interests of creditors, typically organized through banks, clash with those of debtors – whether in industry, government, or households – who have wished to obtain credit on the cheapest possible terms. Bitter conflicts arise across history where the terms of credit clash in fundamental ways with the viability and autonomy of businesses, states, and families.
