Money Unmade

Drawing on a vast array of empirical evidence, Woodruff shows how the widespread use of barter arose as local authorities tried to protect industry against the destructive effects of price increases and crude tax and accounting systems. As businesses fled or were driven from the money economy, provincial governments invented new ways to tax in kind and issued substitutes for the ruble. In turn, the federal authorities, unable to coerce firms either to operate in the money economy or to abandon business altogether, were forced to make accommodations to barter and to ruble alternatives. Woodruff describes the enormous fiscal difficulties that resulted and recounts the intense political battles over attempts to address the problem.

David Woodruff is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1998-99, he was a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the European University of St. Petersburg.