Ambiguity, confidence and fraud: A critical account of the materiality of money

Abstract

This paper extends the analysis of ambiguity in the context of white collar and corporate crime by subjecting money to critical account. Drawing from economic sociology and the sociology of emotions it articulates how the numerical values attached to a particular monetary unit requires confidence in the integrity of that number. Further, dependence on confidence is reproduced at the level of company accounts and is managed through rules governing accounting and auditing practice, practices that engender confidence, despite their inability to identify securely company value. Critically, confidence both in the value of money and in its reproduction in a set of accounts requires the presence of the state. Yet, the state can never establish when confidence is well placed, hence the opportunity for fraud is ever present.