Dirty Money as a Democratic Problem

• In Event: Revisiting Core Concepts in Political Philosophy

Abstract

Individuals and institutions today face controversies around “dirty money”—that is, money received from controversial sources. Critics of dirty money often seem to claim that it is wrong to profit or benefit from ethically troubling economic transactions. So understood, criticism of dirty money may seem to set impossible moral standards and is often dismissed as moralistic, puritanical, or hypocritical. I show how this interpretation truncates the political meaning and practical importance of dirty money. In the long history of dirty money discourse, the morality of economic transactions is only part of what is at stake: dirty money also raises issues about people’s social and political status. To classify money as dirty is to (attempt to) impose a stigma on the people who offer or accept it and so to shape status relations. I also argue that the abolitionist movement is an important pivot in the history of dirty money debates. Earlier examples of dirty money controversies typically concern an institution’s internal deliberations and tend to stabilize or preserve a social and political hierarchy. With abolitionism, dirty money becomes a democratic tool— one that is used to challenge and subvert existing hierarchies.

Author

• Emma Saunders-Hastings, The Ohio State University