Liquidated: an ethnography of Wall Street

摘要

With the rise of neoliberal capitalism, a hegemonic conception of markets as the most effective and progressive mechanism for delivering economic growth and prosperity has become pervasive, almost unquestioned in financial, corporate and policy realms.However, an emerging literature in the social sciences has begun to engage with the nature,construction and (re)production of markets in order to decentre the market as an abstract agent and powerful force. This ethnography of Wall Street investment banks by anthropologist Karen Ho is a successful attempt at puncturing the aura of Wall Street superiority,revealing its fragilities, contradictions and the often devastating impacts of their corporate cultures and collective actions not only on the financial workers and financial markets, but also the rest of corporate America.