Book & podcast collection

Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control

bySean H. Vanatta

Sean H. Vanatta explains how banks built the American credit card industry inside a tightly regulated postwar financial system. Cards helped institutions cross geographic boundaries, recruit new borrowers, and weaken rules that had constrained interest rates and competition. The book follows experiments, lobbying, lawsuits, and policy changes through the pivotal Marquette decision and the relocation of card operations to permissive states. Consumer convenience came with concentrated banking power, expanding household debt, and unequal access, making plastic money a central instrument in the remaking of American finance.

Publisher

Yale University Press

Publication date

2024-05-21

Format

Hardcover

Pages

416

ISBN

9780300247343