Selling debt: Interrogating the moral claims of the financial elites in Central Asia

Balihar Sanghera,Elmira Satybaldieva

doi:10.1177/0309816820943174

Abstract

This article critically examines how banks and microfinance companies morally construed and evaluated their lending practices and income in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Banks occupy a powerful position in a monetary economy, because they do not merely create money ‘out of thin air’, but can charge for it, that is, interest. In doing so, they obtain unearned income and extract wealth. The article examines how banks and microfinance companies used myths, ideals, discourses, norms and emotions to justify and de-politicise their unequal power, unearned income and damaging effects. The study draws on the moral economy perspective and the post-Keynesian theory of money to understand financial institutions’ moral justifications and rationalisations of their position and power. This article contributes to a wider literature on neoliberalism and morality in post-socialist economies.

Highlights

This article critically examines how banks and microfinance companies morally construed and evaluated their lending practices and income in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan
The article aims to contribute to the literature on the moral dimensions of economic practices in developing post-Soviet economies (e.g. Hann 2018; Rudnyckyj & Osella 2017; Wiegratz 2016)
Financial relations are important in neoliberal economies, because they expand the role of economic rent and unearned income beyond the ownership and control of land, property and utilities to money (Hudson 2014)

Summary

Introduction

This article critically examines how banks and microfinance companies morally construed and evaluated their lending practices and income in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The article examines how banks and microfinance companies used myths, ideals, discourses, norms and emotions to justify and de-politicise their unequal power, unearned income and damaging effects. This article critically examines how financial institutions (such as banks and microfinance institutions1) justify their lending practices and income from interest in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This study uses the concept of ‘moral economy’ to examine how moral sentiments, norms and beliefs shape formal and informal economic practices and institutions, and the way these are reinforced, compromised or overridden by economic power and pressures (Sayer 2007). As economic relations and institutions affect human flourishing and have ethical implications, social scientists cannot avoid making evaluations in terms of well-being, justice and fairness

Findings

Objectives

Conclusion