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Paper short abstract:

This paper elaborates on the relationship between physical and exchange-based commodity traders. It argues 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.

Paper long 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 this paper, I aim to show that physical commodity traders use a moral framework to depict their practices as being based on logistical work and expertise, while deprecating exchange trading as speculative and thus 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 trading. 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.