Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance

Språk
Engelsk
Format
Kategori

Økonomi og ledelse

In this provocative look at one of the most important events of our time, renowned scholar Arjun Appadurai argues that the economic collapse of 2008—while indeed spurred on by greed, ignorance, weak regulation, and irresponsible risk-taking—was, ultimately, a failure of language. To prove this sophisticated point, he takes us into the world of derivative finance, which has become the core of contemporary trading and the primary target of blame for the collapse and all our subsequent woes. With incisive argumentation, he analyzes this challengingly technical world, drawing on thinkers such as J. L. Austin, Marcel Mauss, and Max Weber as theoretical guides to showcase the ways language—and particular failures in it—paved the way for ruin. Appadurai moves in four steps through his analysis. In the first, he highlights the importance of derivatives in contemporary finance, isolating them as the core technical innovation that markets have produced. In the second, he shows that derivatives are essentially written contracts about the future prices of assets—they are, crucially, a promise. Drawing on Mauss’s The Gift and Austin’s theories on linguistic performatives, Appadurai, in his third step, shows how the derivative exploits the linguistic power of the promise through the special form that money takes in finance as the most abstract form of commodity value. Finally, he pinpoints one crucial feature of derivatives (as seen in the housing market especially): that they can make promises that other promises will be broken. He then details how this feature spread contagiously through the market, snowballing into the systemic liquidity crisis that we are all too familiar with now. With his characteristic clarity, Appadurai explains one of the most complicated—and yet absolutely central—aspects of our modern economy. He makes the critical link we have long needed to make: between the numerical force of money and the linguistic force of what we say we will do with it.

© 2024 The University of Chicago Press (E-bok): 9780226318806

Utgivelsesdato

E-bok: 31. mai 2024

Tagger

    Derfor vil du elske Storytel:

    • Over 700 000 lydbøker og e-bøker

    • Eksklusive nyheter hver uke

    • Lytt og les offline

    • Kids Mode (barnevennlig visning)

    • Avslutt når du vil

    Det mest populære valget

    Unlimited

    For deg som vil lytte og lese ubegrenset.

    219 kr /måned
    • 1 konto

    • Ubegrenset lytting

    • Lytt så mye du vil

    • Over 700 000 bøker

    • Nye eksklusive bøker hver uke

    • Avslutt når du vil

    Benytt tilbud
    Familiens førstevalg

    Family

    For deg som ønsker å dele historier med familien.

    Fra 289 kr/måned
    • 2-3 kontoer

    • Ubegrenset lytting

    • Lytt så mye du vil

    • Over 700 000 bøker

    • Nye eksklusive bøker hver uke

    • Avslutt når du vil

    2 kontoer

    289 kr /måned
    Benytt tilbud

    Basic

    For deg som lytter og leser av og til.

    149 kr /måned
    • 1 konto

    • 20 timer/måned

    • Lytt opp til 20 timer per måned

    • Over 700 000 bøker

    • Nye eksklusive bøker hver uke

    • Avslutt når du vil

    Benytt tilbud

    Lytt og les ubegrenset

    Kos deg med ubegrenset tilgang til mer enn 700 000 titler.

    • Lytt og les så mye du vil
    • Utforsk et stort bibliotek med fortellinger
    • Over 1500 serier på norsk
    • Ingen bindingstid, avslutt når du vil
    Prøv gratis
    NO - Details page - Device banner - 894x1036
    Cover for Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance