ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the shared roots of doorstep finance companies in pre-existing forms of working-class mutualism and the ways this shaped the forms of community, relational appeal staged by the companies. It emphasis on how they were systematically organised to present an idealised, tamed charisma that would attract and hold on to customers. The introduction of Powers machinery at Prudential came nearly two decades after the United States industrial insurance industry began experimenting with Hollerith and other forms of tabulating machinery. Charisma is self-determined and sets its own limits. It is to Max Weber that owes an understanding of the organisational role of charisma and it has to be acknowledged that his account leaves little room for thinking about doorstep finance agents. Bureaucratic organisation of the sales force was part of a long-standing, persistent effort to recover a reputable mission and this was true of both sectors from the taint of failures, scandal and malpractice.
