The world is run by a global hierarchy of money and credit. Dollars—the world’s best money—can be and are created with different degrees of quality “from above” by the US central bank, but also “from below,” “endogenously” in the US domestic and international banking system. Here, the key practical question is not conceptual—that is, is this really money? (answer: it’s all promissory credit-money)—but moral: How should the global hierarchy for credit-money creation and discipline be morally evaluated? In contrast with simple instrumentalism, this article examines ways the global hierarchy of credit-money is open to moral assessment on its own terms, raising intrinsic questions of justice or legitimacy in and of itself. It considers state legitimacy, the presumptive injustice of social hierarchy, relations of domination, and the idea of money as a res publica.
