Monetary Authorities

Capitalism and Decolonization in the American Colonial Philippines

By: Allan E. S. Lumba

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Hardcover | 20 May 2022

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Hardcover
230 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 1.42

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In Monetary Authorities Allan E. S. Lumba explores how the United States used monetary policy and banking systems to justify racial and class hierarchies, enforce capitalist exploitation, and counter movements for decolonization in the American colonial Philippines. Lumba shows that colonial economic experts justified American imperial authority by claiming that Filipinos did not possess the racial capacities to properly manage money. Financial independence, then, became a key metric of racial capitalism by which Filipinos had to prove their ability to self-govern. At the same time, the colonial state used its monetary authority to police the economic activities of colonized subjects and to curb movements for decolonization. It later offered a conditional form of decolonization that left the Philippines reliant on U.S. financial institutions. By showing how imperial governance was entwined with the racialization and regulation of monetary systems in the Philippines, Lumba illuminates a key mechanism through which the United States securitized the imperial world order.

Industry Reviews

"Monetary Authorities is a stringent, riveting account of the important role of currency controls in the expansion of US imperial rule and racial capitalism. Allan E. S. Lumba's work incisively details how currency stabilization, economic security, financial regulation, and fiscal discipline are key normative instruments of racial subjugation, political pacification, and counter-decolonization. A crucial, powerful intervention reminding us of the politics of everyday transactions at the level of small change." -- Neferti X. M. Tadiar, author of * Remaindered Life *
"Given the significance of the topic, Lumba's book is an important contribution to the scholarly work on Philippine history, economic and business history, and the history of foreign capital and currencies. It gives us a deeper understanding of the economic underpinnings of various Philippine historical epochs and makes us reflect on the lasting impacts of the US colonial project that continues to haunt Philippine society today." -- Katherine G. Lacson * Pacific Affairs *
"This book would be an excellent addition to seminars that examine US empire in Asia or address the history of money and banking on a global scale. In fact, Lumba's book shows how we can no longer understand monetary authority and capitalist rule without considering how such authority has been secured by experiments in the colonies." -- Allison Truitt * Journal of Asian Studies *
"[Monetary Authorities] is a clear-sighted, archivally rich, and erudite account of how imperial logic defined the birth of modern economic thinking in the Philippines and the US." -- Lisandro E. Claudio * Philippine Studies *

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