How do applications of emergent technologies contribute to the social legitimacy of finance? To address this question, we examine a set of technologies that have received increasing industry, media, and scholarly attention over the past decade: blockchains. Harnessing the concepts of ‘moral economy’ and ‘scandal’, we identify both possibilities and limits for blockchain applications to legitimate a range of monetary and investment activities. However, we also find that a persistent individualisation of responsibility for failures and shortcomings with ‘live’ blockchain experimentation has undermined the potentially legitimating aspects of this technology. Combining a reliance on technological fixes with a persistent individualist moral economy, we conclude, works against efforts to confront head-on the tensions underpinning the on-going legitimacy crises facing finance.
%0 Journal Article
%1 campbellverduyn2019beyond
%A Campbell-Verduyn, Malcolm
%A Hütten, Moritz
%D 2019
%J Finance and Society
%K blockchain cryptocurrency digital_money hbs-2017-437-2 legitimacy scandal technology
%N 2
%P 126-144
%R 10.2218/finsoc.v5i2.4137
%T Beyond scandal? Blockchain technologies and the fragile legitimacy of post-2008 finance
%U http://financeandsociety.ed.ac.uk/article/view/4137/5839
%V 5
%X How do applications of emergent technologies contribute to the social legitimacy of finance? To address this question, we examine a set of technologies that have received increasing industry, media, and scholarly attention over the past decade: blockchains. Harnessing the concepts of ‘moral economy’ and ‘scandal’, we identify both possibilities and limits for blockchain applications to legitimate a range of monetary and investment activities. However, we also find that a persistent individualisation of responsibility for failures and shortcomings with ‘live’ blockchain experimentation has undermined the potentially legitimating aspects of this technology. Combining a reliance on technological fixes with a persistent individualist moral economy, we conclude, works against efforts to confront head-on the tensions underpinning the on-going legitimacy crises facing finance.
@article{campbellverduyn2019beyond,
abstract = {How do applications of emergent technologies contribute to the social legitimacy of finance? To address this question, we examine a set of technologies that have received increasing industry, media, and scholarly attention over the past decade: blockchains. Harnessing the concepts of ‘moral economy’ and ‘scandal’, we identify both possibilities and limits for blockchain applications to legitimate a range of monetary and investment activities. However, we also find that a persistent individualisation of responsibility for failures and shortcomings with ‘live’ blockchain experimentation has undermined the potentially legitimating aspects of this technology. Combining a reliance on technological fixes with a persistent individualist moral economy, we conclude, works against efforts to confront head-on the tensions underpinning the on-going legitimacy crises facing finance.},
added-at = {2020-03-17T15:00:40.000+0100},
author = {Campbell-Verduyn, Malcolm and Hütten, Moritz},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2defc438e2b5c4991cbabdef43673c17b/meneteqel},
doi = {10.2218/finsoc.v5i2.4137},
interhash = {d5cd4b81b6a95a69e58cc840d292999e},
intrahash = {defc438e2b5c4991cbabdef43673c17b},
journal = {Finance and Society},
keywords = {blockchain cryptocurrency digital_money hbs-2017-437-2 legitimacy scandal technology},
language = {eng},
number = 2,
pages = {126-144},
timestamp = {2020-03-17T15:00:40.000+0100},
title = {Beyond scandal? Blockchain technologies and the fragile legitimacy of post-2008 finance},
url = {http://financeandsociety.ed.ac.uk/article/view/4137/5839},
volume = 5,
year = 2019
}