In the chapter about the making of Vietnamese money, the authors wrote about how certain currencies were seen as representations certain regimes. A government's ability to coin money gives it legitimacy and the specific silver coins the article talked about were a tangible symbol of the revolution in Vietnam. This idea reminded me of the discussion we had in class about Michelle Obama's dresses.
The fact that the Vietnamese currency had more than just monetary meaning meant that it was part of a moral economy. In the same way that two dollar bills are technically worth one dollar, but also have a collector's value, those coins have some value outside of their stated value. First ladies' dresses can serve as a sort of currency, even if it is just the moral currency and the prestige the first lady and, by extension, the presidency demands--because it's almost certain that those dresses will never be exchanged in a market economy setting. I think that that comparison tells a lot about how governments use moral economy as well as market economy to maintain their legitimacy and sovereignty.
In relation to the United States' economic standing on the world stage, tangible representations of our government, like the first lady' dresses or the White House itself, give us the political and economic capital to impose our ideas about how development is achieved on other countries in the form of structural adjustments (Hann and Hart 103)
This is a great point -- about governments using both their power to determine and legitimize market value as well as their other power to produce inalieanable wealth (the president's family valuables and a myriad other symbolic things/acts/performances). It confirms Weiner's position that market exchange and gift exchange are not mutually exclusive but intertwined.
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