Socialized credit and the working class family economy: a comparative history of France and Britain 1900-2000
Résumé
This paper provides a comparative analysis of working-class consumer credit in twentieth-century Britain and France that is based on the collaboration of a French sociologist and a British historian. Working to overcome the potential mistranslations that arise from two academic and national languages, this represents our first attempt to outline the ideas that are emerging from our collaboration. It indicates a number of similarities between the two nations in the earlier part of the century. In particular, this will be seen in the development of doorstep credit systems. In the British case, credit drapers, sometimes known as tallymen, were amongst those involved; in France, the paper explores a similar scheme that functioned in the coalmining communities around the city of Lens. fragmented consumer loan types (including the continuation of doorstep credit), the French experience (like elsewhere in Europe) was one of greater consolidation. The paper concludes by reflecting on the role of these developments in the creation of differential experiences of credit inclusion/exclusion in the two nations and the impact of this on financial inequality.
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