Abstract

Global supply chains are increasingly controlled by transnationally acting commodity traders. These traders organize deliveries of commodities (such as metals, oil, or agricultural products) and – as market intermediaries – they are often denounced as speculators with no link to the materiality of the traded goods. However, their activities cannot be reduced to the exploitation of price movements, as they are similarly involved in logistical operations. Their services range from transport to warehousing, shipping, certification, and surveillance. Still, physical commodity traders depend upon exchange places such as the London Metals Exchange that set reference prices to commodities and offer mechanisms to hedge their operations. This creates an ambivalent relationship between physical commodity traders and exchange-based traders. In my presentation, I aim to show that physical commodity traders use a moral framework to depict their practices as based on logistical work and expertise, while deprecating exchange trading as speculative and problematic. In doing so, I depict how a deeply moral discourse on what it means to be a good trader shapes the practices of commodity exchange. To analyze the moral categories traders use to talk about different trading practices is important, because it debunks this particular field of economic activities as being critically governed by economic moralities. Instead of simply pursuing maximum financial outcomes, questions about good and bad trading become central to the production of the trading self and help traders to navigate in a complex market surrounding.

Stefan Leins is Professor of Social Anthropology with a focus on economic anthropology at the University of Bern. He has conducted research on commodity trading, supply chains, financial markets, socially responsible investing, and the social role of economic expertise. His book Stories of Capitalism: Inside the Role of Financial Analysts was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2018. He is currently working on publications on transnational commodity trading networks and the role of moral orders in financial capitalism.

Stefan Leins studied social anthropology, economic and social history and Arabic language and literature at the University of Zurich. He then completed his doctorate at the University of Zurich, was a visiting researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Science and taught anthropology at the Universities of Liechtenstein, Lucerne, NTNU Trondheim and Zurich. From 2019 to 2024, Stefan Leins was an assistant professor of social anthropology at the University of Konstanz.