Framing the Global Series. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018. xiii, 246 pp. (Tables, maps.) US$34.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-253-02611-8.
Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a highly interesting and timely study of how the PNG middle class has been enticed and deceived by money schemes, and the global world of finance and development in general. “Fast money” refers to the Tok Pisin equivalents of isi moni (easy money), kwik moni (quick money), and winmoni (win money), money that is derived without doing work or labour, as opposed to wok moni (work money). In PNG, several fast money, or pyramid schemes, have been operating, but one of the most remarkable schemes has been U-Vistract. This money scheme, founded in the late 1990s by Noah Musingku (aka King David Peil II of the Kingdom of Papala in South Bougainville), lured investors with promised rates of return at one hundred percent or more per month. In his well-written monograph, John Cox shows how the people he interviewed were enticed by this scheme, not just by the money, but also because of anxieties about inequality, and visions of Christian (moral) reform and national development.
Fast Money Schemes is based upon in-depth interviews conducted with 26 men and women—all investors in fast money schemes, predominantly living in Madang, but from different parts of PNG. In addition to these interviews, Cox conferred with key stakeholders including: regulatory authorities; financial sector actors, like commercial banks; clergy and active members of churches; nongovernment organizations and donor agencies; journalists; academics, researchers, and social commentators; and government officials and private businesses (12). Cox defines his educated participants as being part of PNG’s growing middle class, and throughout the book he makes connections between fast money schemes and the middle class. While his participants (whose ages, regional affiliation, and occupation are listed in a table in the front matter of the book) predominantly seem to be part of the urban middle class work force, the definition of PNG’s middle class, as well as the inherent generalization that money schemes appear of special interest to the middle class, are somewhat underdeveloped. This is probably due to the fact that the interviews and research were mainly conducted in Madang and Port Moresby, thereby leaving rural investors unexplored. However, U-Vistract did not just appeal to PNG’s political elite and middle class. In Bougainville, people from different social strata and areas, including rural subsistence farmers, have been enticed to invest in U-Vistract.
The strength of Fast Money Schemes is Cox’s ability to describe, contextualize, and compare the U-Vistract scheme (chapter 2) in regional studies of Melanesian scams (chapter 3) and cargo-cults (chapter 4), but also in global financial politics of deception (chapter 5). Throughout the book, Cox references money schemes elsewhere in the world and U-Vistract’s lure outside PNG, elucidating and reaffirming how U-Vistract is not some kind of exotic or uniquely Melanesian phenomenon, but part of global aspirations and financial deceptions, at the same time situated in local and national economic and political socialities (chapter 10). The PNG investors in U-Vistract and other scams “seek to harness the wealth of the global stock markets for the purposes of fulfilling old hopes of egalitarian national development” (3). Moreover, these investors envision themselves not only as prosperous global citizens, but also as Christian moral actors.
In various chapters (but especially in chapters 6, 7, and 8), Cox unravels the intimate connections between U-Vistract and Christianity, in particular with the Prosperity Gospel and notions of Christian citizenship. U-Vistract presented itself as a Christian organization and “utilized particular aspects of contemporary Christian practice and belief in attracting and retaining investors” (103). As has been commented upon by various scholars working in the region, Christianity, politics, and development are intrinsically linked. Graham Hassall, in his article on faith-based organizations (FBOs) and social policy in Melanesia, argues that faith-based organizations, such as churches, social networks, NGOs, and media and business divisions, play crucial roles in providing services in terms of education, health, and economic development. In fact, governments seek “effective partnership with FBOs for programme and service delivery at a community level whilst also seeking more effective integration of policy at national level” (Australian Journal of Social Issues 47, no. 3 [2012]: 390). Hence, it is perhaps not surprising that U-Vistract, acting as a Christian ministry concerned with individual and national development, gained so much support and traction in both government circles and among the general public, regardless of denominational affiliation. Cox attributes much of U-Vistract’s success to prosperity gospel: the belief promulgated among protestant (Pentecostal) Christians that financial blessing and physical well-being are the will of God and dependent upon ones faithfulness to God. However, this does not account for the fact that U-Vistract managed to entice investors from other denominations and gained so much support in Bougainville, whose population is predominantly Catholic.
Unfortunately, Cox could not dwell on the Bougainvillean religious and political context of U-Vistract and its main support base. However, he convincingly argues how in urban areas like Madang, Pentecostalism brings a particular rhetoric in which both individuals and nations are “in need of redemption in order to put their past behind them and adopt a new Christian demeanor” (125). Papua New Guineans’ “negative nationalism” (chapter 7) imagines PNG as lacking “white” moral qualities, and is “applied to the state as a moral critique of the national character” (126). Furthermore, banks are regarded as part of the “government system” and hence “institutions that reflect the failings of national character” (176). Cox’s in depth and strong analysis shows how U-Vistract promised both moral and financial “salvation,” addressing problems of poverty and inequality, and “cultivating an ideal of its members as Christian patrons” and agents “of national development” (140).
One of the most intriguing aspects of Fast Money Schemes is this interplay between the promise of hope and agency on the one hand, and deception on the other, which is skillfully crafted through excerpts from the participants’ interviews and Cox’s grounded analyses. Moreover, the dynamic and complex relationships between prosperity, citizenship, morality, and society that form the backbone of the book, significantly increase our understanding of money schemes like U-Vistract and their national and global appeal. As such, Fast Money Schemes is a must read for scholars and students interested in economic anthropology and Papua New Guinea in general, but also to those interested in Christianity and globalization.
Anna-Karina Hermkens
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia