Description
How do periods of international economic turbulence influence everyday agents’ perception of economic inequality? Addressing this question by focusing on everyday life in the UK during the years leading up to the Great Depression and the suspension of the interwar gold standard, I present evidence from multiple British archives such as the People’s History Museum and the Modern Records Centre and argue that the economic instability in the international system translated to experiences of increasing economic polarisation among everyday agents in the UK. While unemployment and wages were problematised in rather concrete terms, discussions on economic inequality were often tied to broader ideational questions about how contemporary arrangements functioned and the direction the society was heading – or should be heading. At the same time, everyday agents clearly distanced themselves to (international) financiers, indicating early tensions between the international financial system and everyday experiences. Exploring these tendencies, I advance a more qualitative approach to the study of inequality that situates economic polarisation in the broader social, historical, and international context and highlights the mutually dependent relationship between the international sphere and the everyday.
Keywords: Everyday IPE, inequality, instability, economic crisis, perceptions, experiences
