Pang, Nicholas A. (2025) The moral accounting of debts: productivity, deservingness and the consensual creation of Chapter XIII bankruptcy. Socio-Economic Review, 23 (1). pp. 155-181. ISSN 1475-1461
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Chapter XIII's wage-earner payment plans are now the default form of personal bankruptcy in the USA. During the Great Depression, it was created as a voluntary choice and enacted with unanimous legislative support. Absent conflict between creditors and labor and social reformers, legislators agreed that Chapter XIII was for the benefit of both honorable insolvents and their fair creditors. How did wage-earner payment plans emerge out of a consensual legislative process? Employing a computational abductive approach on a wide range of legislative, media and bankruptcy records, I show that Chapter XIII's creation was facilitated by a 'moral accounting' that, based on their race and gender identities, positively evaluated most White men bankruptcy petitioners as 'deserving', even as it recognized occupational variations in their economic 'productivity'. This study highlights how racial discourses of 'deservingness' are central to the construction of credit markets as part of America's submerged welfare state.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). |
| Divisions: | LSE |
| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HM Sociology |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Oct 2025 11:06 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Oct 2025 09:54 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129981 |
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