Commerce + Society Exam 2

Money

Something used as a medium of exchange, a unit of account for prices, and a store of value for later use.

Money vs. currency

The distinction between the broader concept used to exchange, measure, and store value and its particular circulating forms, such as coins and banknotes.

Commodity money

Money made from a material that has uses or value apart from serving as money, such as salt, gold, or silver.

Politics and commerce

The relationship through which political authority shapes economic activity and economic resources support political power. A ruler issuing coins and collecting taxes illustrates this relationship.

Differentiate/differentiating

To distinguish or treat things differently. In Zelizer's reading, people do this by assigning money different meanings and purposes depending on its source or intended use.

Fungible/fungibility

The property of being interchangeable with another unit of equal value. Dollars are technically interchangeable, but Zelizer shows that people may treat rent money, gifts, and wages differently.

Representative money

Money that represents a claim on a specified underlying commodity and can be redeemed for it, such as a paper note redeemable for gold.

Fiat money

Money that is not redeemable for a fixed amount of a commodity. Its acceptance depends on monetary institutions, government authority, and people's confidence that others will accept it.

Mobile payments

Transfers or purchases made using a mobile phone. In Kenya, M-Pesa allows people to send funds and use agents to deposit or withdraw cash.

Financial inclusion

Access to affordable, useful financial services, such as payments, savings, and credit, for people previously excluded from them.

Silicon Savannah

A nickname for Kenya's technology and innovation sector, especially around Nairobi, associated with developments such as M-Pesa.

Cryptocurrency

A form of digital asset that uses cryptography and a shared ledger to record and verify transactions, often without a central issuing authority.

Bitcoin

The specific cryptocurrency examined in Tremcinsky's reading that uses a decentralized network and blockchain. Participants debated using it for everyday exchange versus holding it for future gains.

General-purpose money

Money that can be used widely across different goods, services, and obligations, rather than being restricted to a particular purpose or social sphere.

DeFi (decentralized finance)

Financial services organized through blockchain-based systems and smart contracts, aiming to perform activities such as lending or trading without conventional intermediaries like banks.

Distributed ledger

A record of transactions shared and maintained across multiple computers rather than held only in one central database.

Commodity

A good or service produced for exchange. In Marx, it has both usefulness and value expressed through exchange; Benston contrasts market production with unpaid household production.

Means of production

The tools, machinery, buildings, land, and raw materials used to produce goods. In Marx's yarn example, these include cotton and spinning equipment.

Value

In Marx's theory, the socially necessary abstract labor embodied in a commodity. This is distinct from its usefulness or its actual selling price.

Labor theory of value

The theory that a commodity's value is determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce it under normal conditions, rather than the time any particular worker happens to take.

Extraction of surplus value

The process through which a capitalist appropriates the value workers create beyond the value of their labor power. In the yarn example, workers add six shillings of new value but receive wages of three shillings.

Capital

Value put into motion to generate more value. In Marx, money purchases means of production and labor power so that production and sale return a larger sum.

Means of subsistence

The necessities that sustain workers and support the reproduction of labor power, such as food, housing, and clothing. Their socially established level helps determine the value of labor power.

Task-oriented time

An organization of work in which the task and its demands determine the rhythm and duration of labor, such as working according to harvest needs or the tides.

Clock-oriented time

An organization of work governed by measured hours, schedules, and punctuality. Employers purchase workers' time and treat time not spent working as lost productive time.

Labor discipline

The practices that shape workers into meeting expectations about effort, behavior, and productivity, such as supervision, fines, schedules, quotas, or app-based ratings.

Ideology

A system of ideas and values that explains and helps justify a social order. In Kotkin, socialist ideas presented industrial work as building a new society.

Collectivized labor

Work organized as a collective undertaking toward shared production goals. In Kotkin's Soviet example, brigades, collective targets, and socialist competition linked individual work to the wider socialist project.

Capitalism

An economic system organized around private ownership of the means of production, wage labor, and production for profit.

Gender

Socially organized roles, expectations, and relationships associated with categories such as women and men. Benston examines how these assign domestic work to women; Leshkowich examines how they shape the treatment of traders.

Invisible labor

Work that contributes to households and the economy but is overlooked, undervalued, or excluded from conventional measures of production. Benston's example is unpaid domestic work that sustains workers and raises future workers.

Market socialism

An economic arrangement combining socialist political institutions and significant public ownership with markets and some private enterprise. Leshkowich examines how Vietnamese traders were positioned within this arrangement.

Naturalize

To present something created by social and historical conditions as natural or inevitable. Describing women as naturally suited to petty trade hides the policies and circumstances that helped produce that pattern.

Give an example of commodity money and explain why it qualifies.

Salt used as payment is commodity money because it also has a use outside of exchange, such as preserving and flavoring food.

Give an example of representative money and explain why it qualifies.

A paper certificate redeemable for a fixed amount of gold is representative money because it represents a claim on that gold.

Give an example of fiat money and explain why it qualifies.

Today's U.S. dollar is fiat money because it is accepted as money but cannot be redeemed for a fixed amount of gold or another commodity.

Give an example of politics and commerce interacting in the origins of money.

A ruler issues coins and requires taxes to be paid with them. Political authority encourages their use, while tax revenue helps support the ruler's government.

Give an example of differentiating money from Zelizer.

A household sets aside money in separate envelopes for rent, food, and entertainment. Although it is all money, each portion is assigned a different purpose.

Give an example showing the difference between technical fungibility and the social meaning of money.

A dollar reserved for rent is technically interchangeable with a dollar reserved for entertainment, but a person may refuse to spend the rent dollar on a movie because of its assigned purpose.

Give an example of mobile payments from Kusimba.

A person working in a Kenyan city sends money to relatives through M-Pesa. The relatives can withdraw cash through a local agent.

Give an example of financial inclusion through mobile money.

A person without a bank account can receive transfers and deposit or withdraw funds through M-Pesa agents, gaining access to payment services.

Give an example of a tension in Bitcoin use from Tremcinsky.

Some participants hold Bitcoin hoping its price will rise, while others encourage spending it to build an alternative economy. Holding it for investment can limit its everyday circulation.

Give an example of means of production from Marx's yarn example.

Cotton and spinning equipment are means of production because workers use them to produce yarn.

Give an example of the extraction of surplus value from Marx's yarn example.

In a 12-hour day, a worker adds six shillings of new value but receives three shillings for their labor power. The capitalist appropriates the remaining three shillings as surplus value.

Give an example of task-oriented time.

A worker organizes work around completing a harvest or tending animals. The task's demands determine when and how long the work takes.

Give an example of clock-oriented time.

A factory worker must arrive at a set hour and work a scheduled shift. Work is measured and organized by hours rather than simply by completing a task.

Give an example of labor discipline from the delivery-worker reading.

Delivery apps use ratings, delivery-time expectations, and access to orders or shifts to pressure workers to follow platform rules and work quickly.

Give an example of ideology shaping collectivized labor in Kotkin.

Soviet workers are encouraged to meet collective production goals because their labor is presented as helping build socialism. Socialist competition connects workplace performance to that political project.

Give an example of invisible labor from Benston and explain its importance.

Unpaid cooking, cleaning, and childcare sustain workers and raise future workers. This work supports the economy even though it is not sold for a wage and is often undervalued.

Give an example of naturalizing gender from Leshkowich.

Describing women as naturally patient and therefore suited to petty trade presents their economic position as a result of feminine qualities. It obscures the policies and historical conditions that helped concentrate women in that work.

Give an example of government policies shaping gender roles in Leshkowich.

Under high socialism, officials could view women's small-scale trading as family subsistence rather than capitalist enterprise. This gave women more room to continue trading and helped reinforce the association between women and petty trade.

Give an example of market socialism from Leshkowich.

Vietnam's market reforms allowed more private enterprise and market exchange while the Communist Party retained political control. Traders operated within this combination of socialist political institutions and market activity.

How did the treatment of women traders change under market socialism in Leshkowich?

Market activity became more acceptable, but women in petty trade could still be portrayed as backward. Larger, politically connected entrepreneurs were more likely to be celebrated as modern, so market reforms did not erase gender and class hierarchies.

Why does Leshkowich challenge the idea that women are naturally suited to petty trade?

Claims that women are naturally patient, persuasive, or good at selling hide how policies and historical circumstances shaped their opportunities. Women's concentration in petty trade was socially produced rather than simply an expression of natural feminine traits.