When Monetary Systems Resist Correction: Money, Institutional Power, and the Governance of Life-Sustaining Provision
Abstract
Monetary institutions can correct threats to financial continuity while leaving consequential deprivation unresolved. This paper investigates that asymmetry as a problem of institutional corrigibility. It extends Viable Freedom and The Monetary Ground and the Life-Ground by examining how recognized harms become, or fail to become, authorized remedies. Keynes, Graeber, Hudson, Lietaer, Goerner, Ulanowicz, Kalecki, Veblen, Minsky, and related traditions supply distinct accounts of obligations, adjustment, dependence, financial fragility, and power; McMurtry supplies the life-value orientation, while Maturana informs scrutiny of governing distinctions. The paper proposes five interacting mechanisms: representational exclusion, dependence on indispensable services, concentrated veto authority, unequal adjustment, and reconstitution of power. It distinguishes these from technical uncertainty, limited capacity, and legitimate disagreement. Intellectual reception, policy adoption, implementation, and reversal are treated as separate outcomes. Historical comparisons and a hypothetical water-finance example show how inherited proposals can generate viable choice-spaces without presuming their superiority. Effective correction is proposed to require a connection among evidence, legitimate authority, implementation resources, and revisability, including correction of reform itself. A comparative research programme specifies rival explanations, equivalent-resource comparators, and disconfirmation tests. The contribution is a conceptual synthesis and testable institutional proposal, not a demonstrated general law of monetary resistance.
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BibTeX
@misc{sahely2026when,
title = {{When Monetary Systems Resist Correction: Money, Institutional Power, and the Governance of Life-Sustaining Provision}},
author = {Bichara Sahely},
howpublished = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23434161},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/23434161},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - When Monetary Systems Resist Correction: Money, Institutional Power, and the Governance of Life-Sustaining Provision
AU - Bichara Sahely
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/18
PB - Zenodo
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23434161
UR - https://zenodo.org/records/23434161
AB - Monetary institutions can correct threats to financial continuity while leaving consequential deprivation unresolved. This paper investigates that asymmetry as a problem of institutional corrigibility. It extends Viable Freedom and The Monetary Ground and the Life-Ground by examining how recognized harms become, or fail to become, authorized remedies. Keynes, Graeber, Hudson, Lietaer, Goerner, Ulanowicz, Kalecki, Veblen, Minsky, and related traditions supply distinct accounts of obligations, adjustment, dependence, financial fragility, and power; McMurtry supplies the life-value orientation, while Maturana informs scrutiny of governing distinctions. The paper proposes five interacting mechanisms: representational exclusion, dependence on indispensable services, concentrated veto authority, unequal adjustment, and reconstitution of power. It distinguishes these from technical uncertainty, limited capacity, and legitimate disagreement. Intellectual reception, policy adoption, implementation, and reversal are treated as separate outcomes. Historical comparisons and a hypothetical water-finance example show how inherited proposals can generate viable choice-spaces without presuming their superiority. Effective correction is proposed to require a connection among evidence, legitimate authority, implementation resources, and revisability, including correction of reform itself. A comparative research programme specifies rival explanations, equivalent-resource comparators, and disconfirmation tests. The contribution is a conceptual synthesis and testable institutional proposal, not a demonstrated general law of monetary resistance.
ER -