Friday, Aug 21, 2009
More equal than others
FT: Eliminate financial double-think
Gillian Tett, one of the most insightful of financial journalists, points out that banks don't apply free market principals to themselves.
Posted by letthemfall @ 11:08 AM (446 views) Add Comment
5 Comments
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1. paul said...
I'm reading Gillian Tett's book "Fools Gold". She predicted that we would be in for an umbrella handle shaped recovery. Plummeting for some time, then a brief upswing and then stagantion.
Sounds much more feasible than the recovereh the mainstream media have been spouting about.
2. letthemfall said...
Sounds like a book worth reading, paul. Interesting that she is an anthropologist rather than finance guru. Standing outside the experts' domain she seems to see things much more clearly.
Incidentally, must correct my spelling malaprop - should of course be 'principles'.
3. flashman said...
“The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need of words, and ask no more than a complicitous silence.”
Pierre Bourdieu equates ‘complicitous silence’ to a bovine acceptance of elite behaviour. However, I don’t believe this is relevant to our society. Our society was indeed complilicitus but not in the sense that we were uncomprehending and cowed into silence. We were complicit in that we believed that we could somehow join the party and reap the rewards of the elites' behaviour. At some stage, the population of this country became aspirational and confident in the future. Consequently, many people cheered on the swaggering riches enjoyed by the elite because they thought they would get a slice of the cake. The celebrity culture and the obsession with cars and houses is the manifestation of a type of complicity that was not envisioned by Pierre Bourdieu
I appreciate that this does not apply to most HPC posters but we are a minority
4. Clockslinger said...
Flashman, yep, correct. There is an awful lot of complicity by every one of us in partaking in the creation of this model of market capitalism. It ought, however, to come as no surprise to anyone who has taken a passing interest in the (lack of) political culture of the country that the elite have not only taken the cake but are about to mug us for our crumbs too. It is the logical conclusion of the long term trend. As for celebrity culture, it's bread and circuses (booze being the bread,or soma). Public space gets trashed, civic and collective values derided. It didn't happen overnight and we are about to be invited to quietly go along to the polls and perform the ritual of legitamising this rape continuing. And we will! Which is a fine example of the concensus around the anglo saxon model. Now, let me get a qoute on those Wetherspoon shares...
5. clockslinger said...
Flash, this alcohol fuelled, celebrity obsessed and materialistic culture is the bread and circuses of our generation. All happily encouraged and sold to us by the same people who brought us the war on terror and the f*#k you society where civic space and community values count for nothing. Yes, we are all complicit and increasingly so as critical thought and political dissent are increasingly marginalised. We will all be expected legitamise the whole wretched process by voting for parties who will administer yet more theft of our state by the global elite in a few months. How can one parody a society where Mendleson cuddles up on holiday with Osbourne, Rothschild and a Russian gangster. I, for one, accept that I am complicit because I am not out there rioting...complicitous silence indeed.