Fear and greed are terms that make light of the uncertainty in the finance world. Huge global financial institutions rely on emotional relations of trust and distrust to suppress the uncertainties. M
Money is a promise with future benefits or dangers that are unknowable and incalculable. The financial sector is an attempt to beat uncertainty by speculating on whether prices will rise or fall. No matter how often the folly of this opportunism is shown through crisis after crisis of trust, efforts to defeat uncertainty persist. Yet uncertainty is unavoidable. Squeezed in one place, it emerges in another. Based on extensive interviews with leading actors in the financial sector, this book argues that the only way to cope with uncertainty is by relying on emotions and values. It presents an original explanation of how booms and busts arise from internal disputes over the emotions of trust between global financial corporations. Confidence and suspicion alternate between which strategy may beat competitors and who is cheating whom. Just as the first edition warned of continuing dangers in finance's betrayal of society's trust, this new edition provides a sociological explanation of how t
During the recent financial crisis, the conflict between sovereign states and banks over who controls the creation of money was thrown into sharp relief. This collection investigates the relationship between states and banks, arguing that conflicts between the two over control of money produces critical junctures. Drawing on Max Weber's concept of 'mobile capital', the book examines the mobility of capital networks in contexts of funding warfare, global bubbles and dangerous instability disengaged from social-economic activity. It proposes that mobile capital is a primary feature of capitalism and nation states, and furthermore, argues that the perennial, hierarchical struggles between states and global banks is intrinsic to capitalism. Featuring authors writing from an impressively diverse range of academic backgrounds (including sociology, geography, economics and politics), Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital presents a variety of analyses using current or past examples from differ
Emotions in Finance, first published in 2005, is an analysis of global corporate oligopolies in the financial sector. During/after the dot com collapse, the book showed the dangerous corporate emotions in today's financial world, urging caution against the emerging property bubble of 2005. Aggressive competition leads, inevitably, to more collapses, which the worst credit crisis since 1929 proved, barely two years after the ink on the book was dry. Claims that 'a few' economists 'picked' the financial crisis are not true. The book contains interviews with famous central bankers and financiers in the City and Wall Street, who agreed that the book's fresh analysis showed inevitable future crashes, and much distress for many populations far removed from the oligarchs who unthinkingly run the financial sector for short-term profits and do not take the risks to lend for socially useful purposes.
During the recent financial crisis, the conflict between sovereign states and banks over who controls the creation of money was thrown into sharp relief. This collection investigates the relationship between states and banks, arguing that conflicts between the two over control of money produces critical junctures. Drawing on Max Weber's concept of 'mobile capital', the book examines the mobility of capital networks in contexts of funding warfare, global bubbles and dangerous instability disengaged from social-economic activity. It proposes that mobile capital is a primary feature of capitalism and nation states, and furthermore, argues that the perennial, hierarchical struggles between states and global banks is intrinsic to capitalism. Featuring authors writing from an impressively diverse range of academic backgrounds (including sociology, geography, economics and politics), Critical Junctures in Mobile Capital presents a variety of analyses using current or past examples from differ
When the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England purchased bank and state debt during the 2007–2008 crisis, it became apparent that, when technically divorced from fiscal policy, monetary policy cannot revive but only prevent economic activity deteriorating further. Pixley explains how conflicting social forces shape the diverse, complex relations of central banks to the money production of democracies and the immense money creation by capitalist banking. Central banks are never politically neutral and, despite unfair demands, are unable to prevent collapses to debt deflation or credit/asset inflation. They can produce debilitating depressions but not the recoveries desired in democracies and unwanted by capitalist banks or war finance logics. Drawing on economic sociology and economic histories, this book will appeal to informed readers interested in studying democracies, banks and central banking's ambivalent positions, via comparative and distributive
When the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England purchased bank and state debt during the 2007–2008 crisis, it became apparent that, when technically divorced from fiscal policy, monetary policy cannot revive but only prevent economic activity deteriorating further. Pixley explains how conflicting social forces shape the diverse, complex relations of central banks to the money production of democracies and the immense money creation by capitalist banking. Central banks are never politically neutral and, despite unfair demands, are unable to prevent collapses to debt deflation or credit/asset inflation. They can produce debilitating depressions but not the recoveries desired in democracies and unwanted by capitalist banks or war finance logics. Drawing on economic sociology and economic histories, this book will appeal to informed readers interested in studying democracies, banks and central banking's ambivalent positions, via comparative and distributive
The financial crisis that started in 2007 is a concern for the world. Some countries are in depression and governments are desperately trying to find solutions. In the absence of thorough debate on th
The financial crisis that started in 2007 is a concern for the world. Some countries are in depression and governments are desperately trying to find solutions. In the absence of thorough debate on th
This volume is a debate about a sociology and economics of money: a form of positive trespassing. It is unique in being written by scholars of both disciplines committed to this mutual venture and in
