Hobbes’ redoubt? Toward a geography of monetary policy

Abstract

This paper undertakes three tasks: (1) to consider monetary policy’s role in contemporary capitalism and state governance; (2) to introduce the fundamentals of contemporary monetary policy; and (3) to outline some of the material and ideological stakes in the social, political, and economic geographies of monetary policy and central banking as practised in advanced capitalist nation states. I focus on subnational and class effects, arguing that the precarious relation between central banks and national democratic processes has become increasingly tenuous. Empirical examples are drawn from Canada and the USA.