Remembering crises: the making of monetary distrust in Argentina
2025-07-21
Money, the paramount contract of market societies, relies on our collective belief in its enduring value. Yet we still know little about the social foundations that sustain that belief. How is collective trust in the enduring value of money socially constructed—and what happens when that trust is lost? What if a society becomes convinced that policymakers cannot guarantee that money’s value will persist over time? This article takes Argentina as a case to study how the memory of decades of monetary turmoil crystallised into a distrust narrative: a widespread belief that neither the state nor the domestic financial system can safeguard the value of the national currency or savings over time. By analysing how this narrative is shaped and transmitted through collective memory, the article challenges accounts that treat public trust (and distrust) as by-products of elite credibility. It shows instead how socially embedded imaginaries of failure can weaken a central bank’s ability to govern public expectations.