Toward an Intersectional Analysis of Money: Racial Capitalism, Stagflation, and Unemployment as Economic Policy

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Abstract: This essay details the economic austerity of the 1970s during the era of stagflation and monetary instability. It describes the role of racism, patriarchy, and other social systems of difference in these policy choices, and thus argues that an intersectional analysis is critical to understanding the fabrication of money. As the US dollar transitioned fully off the gold standard, policymakers tolerated significant unemployment as they sought to manage inflation. The unemployment and economic violence of this era was widespread, but not evenly shared. Instead, policymakers constructed monetary stability and faith in fiat currency on the backs of the most vulnerable. However, grassroots movements, such as Coretta Scott King’s Full Employment Action Council and the National Welfare Rights Organization, pushed for alternative solutions to both inflation and wagelessness. By outlining these contests, I suggest that although violence has been intertwined with the history of money, critical analyses of money also reveal shared interdependencies across the world.