The Currency of Communism and its Social Meaning: structures of authority and the transformation of monetary relations in Hungary, 1945-1974

My proposed project challenges orthodox understandings of Hungary's 'classical socialist system' by undertaking an interdisciplinary analysis of the role of money in the Hungarian socialist economy and society. Drawing on historical sociology and anthropology as well as methods of socio-economic history, I shall analyse the role of currency and structures of monetary relations in Hungary from the end of the Second World War in 1945 until the curtailment of the New Economic Mechanism in 1972-1974. My focus is therefore on Hungary's Soviet-style 'primitive accumulation' period during which the market started to fulfil a more dominant role in the economy.
Whereas neoclassical economics conceives money as a medium of exchange existing solely to alleviate the inefficiencies of barter, I draw on alternative economic theories that emphasise money's functions as a unit of account denominating debt/credit relations. I use these conceptualisations of money to research the Hungarian Forint as a structure of social relationship and process through which a given society's power relations can be traced and comprehended. In doing this, I shall analyse Hungarian monetary relationships both from top-down and bottom-up perspectives.
Specifically, the project will undertake a nuanced micro-analysis of how money functioned within village and industrial settings, addressing themes such as land ownership; labour value; wage disparities by gender, age or ethnicity; social networks; the reach and scope of state policy; and other socio-economic and political phenomena of industrialising and newly industrialised economies. Key questions to be addressed include: (1) to what extent did the institutionalisation of monetary relations and other involuntary and contractual arrangements (e.g. taxes) in the new socialist system reinforce, or constrain, the state's exercise of power? (2) what changes did socialist reforms bring about in agrarian and working class identities and social cohesion in comparison with pre-war capitalism? (3) how did the lived experience of the population reflect the objectives of socialist policy-makers in respect to fiscal matters?
The study will be based on a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology, using empirical case studies shaped by my theoretical frameworks to examine monetary relations and money's role in rural and urban society, from the perspective of both state policy and lived social experience. For the project, I shall conduct overseas fieldwork in Hungary to collect empirical case studies by visiting various types of archives both in the capital and the countryside.