|
|
|
Item Details
Title:
|
BANKING ON WORDS
THE FAILURE OF LANGUAGE IN THE AGE OF DERIVATIVE FINANCE |
By: |
Arjun Appadurai |
Format: |
Paperback |
List price:
|
£21.00 |
Our price: |
£18.90 |
Discount: |
|
You save:
|
£2.10 |
|
|
|
|
ISBN 10: |
022631877X |
ISBN 13: |
9780226318776 |
Availability: |
Usually dispatched within 1-3 weeks.
Delivery
rates
|
Stock: |
Currently 0 available |
Publisher: |
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS |
Pub. date: |
30 October, 2015 |
Pages: |
176 |
Synopsis: |
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. |
Publication: |
US |
Imprint: |
University of Chicago Press |
Returns: |
Returnable |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Little Worried Caterpillar (PB)
Little Green knows she''s about to make a big change - transformingfrom a caterpillar into a beautiful butterfly. Everyone is VERYexcited! But Little Green is VERY worried. What if being a butterflyisn''t as brilliant as everyone says?Join Little Green as she finds her own path ... with just a littlehelp from her friends.
|
|
All the Things We Carry PB
What can you carry?A pebble? A teddy? A bright red balloon? A painting you''ve made?A hope or a dream?This gorgeous, reassuring picture book celebrates all the preciousthings we can carry, from toys and treasures to love and hope. With comforting rhymes and fabulous illustrations, this is a warmhug of a picture book.
|
|
|
|