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

我提出的项目通过对匈牙利社会主义经济和社会中货币的作用进行跨学科分析，挑战匈牙利“古典社会主义制度”的正统理解。利用历史社会学和人类学以及社会经济史的方法，我将分析从1945年第二次世界大战结束到1972-1974年新经济机制被削减期间匈牙利货币的作用和货币关系的结构。因此，我的重点是匈牙利的苏联式的“原始积累”时期，在此期间，市场开始在经济中发挥更大的主导作用，而新古典主义经济学认为货币作为交换媒介存在，只是为了减轻易货的低效率，我借鉴替代经济理论，强调货币的功能作为一个单位的计价债务/信贷关系。我使用这些货币的概念化来研究匈牙利福林作为一种社会关系和过程的结构，通过这种结构和过程，可以追踪和理解特定社会的权力关系。在此过程中，我将从自上而下和自下而上的角度分析匈牙利的货币关系，具体而言，该项目将对货币如何在村庄和工业环境中发挥作用进行细致入微的微观分析，涉及土地所有权;劳动价值;性别、年龄或种族的工资差异;社交网络;国家政策的范围和范围;以及工业化和新兴工业化经济体的其他社会经济和政治现象。要解决的关键问题包括：（1）在新的社会主义制度中，货币关系的制度化和其他非自愿和契约安排（如税收）在多大程度上加强或限制了国家权力的行使？(2)与战前的资本主义相比，社会主义改革在农民和工人阶级的身份认同和社会凝聚力方面带来了什么变化？(3)人民的生活经验如何反映社会主义决策者在财政事务方面的目标？本研究将基于定量和定性相结合的方法，使用由我的理论框架形成的实证案例研究，从国家政策和生活社会经验的角度来研究货币关系和货币在农村和城市社会中的作用。为了这个项目，我将在匈牙利进行海外实地考察，通过访问首都和农村的各种档案收集经验案例研究。

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.