Comments on: Pierre Bourdieu, Tim Geithner, and Cultural Capital

By: Velvet Howler › Blog Archive › Pierre Bourdieu, Tim Geithner, and Cultural Capital

Sun, 24 May 2009 06:35:48 +0000

[...] status for quasi-nationalized zombie banks), so now we just need to remove corruption. So I like this James Kwak post over at The Baseline Scenario, where he makes the point that what we really need is not regulation [...]

By: Of Men and Markets « Rortybomb

Of Men and Markets « Rortybomb — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:17:56 +0000

[...] events as having meaning, I’ve never seen it get deployed in terms of the notion of habitus. James Kwak started such a critique using cultural capital, god bless him, but the commenters erupted into [...]

By: geoffrem

geoffrem — Mon, 04 May 2009 23:14:59 +0000

Bourdieu would no doubt have been incredulous at your categorizing him as a ‘postmodern philosopher’ given his (almost irrational) hatred for both postmodern theory and philosophy.

By: zern

zern — Mon, 04 May 2009 02:18:54 +0000

William Reddy has developed the concept of emotional community, which I have found useful in thinking about the crisis. We all belong to several emotional communities but Geithner and other financial types live in a particularly tight world. They spend most of their time at work surrounded by people of like mind. Most of the people they work with have similar values and ethics. Their emotional highs and lows flow from their communities values. Some of them have a larger sense of community but, Sommers I think would be a good example, are clueless outside of their experience. It would be foolish to think that the financial community is capable, as a whole, of escaping the narcissistic tendencies that besets elites.

By: Uncle Billy Vs. Mont Pelerin

Uncle Billy Vs. Mont Pelerin — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:37:08 +0000

How about asking questions like: “Why do so many people think we need Wall Street.” It’s an abomination. If we want to grease the wheels of a saner form of Capitalism by letting people buy stock in companies, all we need to do is create a completely transparent, open and automatic trading system. You will not be able to convince me we need to keep derivatives or shorting alive. There is no need for them except to greedy, conniving, and piggish. Of course we still have the problem of cnbc, and the Cramers and “Analysts.” We still have the problem of the ratings agencies. If we can manage to make honest institutions of these, however, it just might function as intended instead of as a huge corrupt casino.

By: Uncle Billy Vs. Mont Pelerin

Uncle Billy Vs. Mont Pelerin — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:04:29 +0000

If more Frenchmen would remove their ethereal heads from their ethereal buttocks and deign to engage in civil discourse with the rest of humanity instead of mincing around the world with an air of superiority (that seems to be spreading as easily as the swine flu) the rest of the world might be more receptive to their thoughts. Desert Island — you have a choice of your beloved Pierre versus Voltaire. Tell me with a straight face that you’d choose Pierre. If you can, begone, because you are more interested in appearing acquainted with exotic and esoteric thinkers than you are with sharing in improving the lives of other people.

By: James

James — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:54:25 +0000

Be of good cheer, James. Your reaction to Bourdieu is, I believe, far closer to the general academic view than that of Daniel de Paris. Bourdieu’s description of the genesis of class distinctions is likely to rile those who avoid the rabble–and who feature centrally in his analysis…. His abdication of his place in the great ivory tower for the noise and chaos of the streets is also seen as class treason, and as evidence of being a “not serious” sort of person by that same group he speaks of- who have learned to speak of Monet and Rembrandt in the proper way.
For another view of economic issues that’s often very well informed, I suggest that you drop into the European Tribune.

By: James

James — Fri, 01 May 2009 04:43:02 +0000

One of the most remarkable things one repeatedly encounters as an expat is the unfortunate American aversion to “foreign” ideas, particularly French ideas. Still a mystery to me how so many otherwise reasonable people can blow off so many centuries of human endeavor and insight from the elevated position of a culture younger than the school my seven-year-old daughter goes to.
Pierre Bourdieu is widely recognized as one of the preeminent social thinkers of our time, a man who blew off a world-class career in academia to take his show to the streets, and who died suddenly of cancer, at the peak of his powers and in the midst of a meteoric rise in popular influence and potential power.

The human race needs a few heroes. He’s one of mine. The US could use a few like him.

By: Uncle Billy Vs. Mont Pelerin

Uncle Billy Vs. Mont Pelerin — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:51:18 +0000

Re Kobe Beef — even this world has been infected with the fake quality bug. AAA is being stamped on food just as on securities, companies, and countries. One of the most celebrated restaurants in Hong Kong just lost its chef because they insisted he buy imitation Kobe beef from China (Supposedly Wagyu), fake Alaskan Lobster, etc.

By: Top Posts « WordPress.com

Top Posts « WordPress.com — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:22:59 +0000

[...] Pierre Bourdieu, Tim Geithner, and Cultural Capital France in the 1960s and 1970s was the source of a tremendous amount of new philosophical, literary, and critical [...] [...]

By: If the Banks Own the Senate, Why Don’t We Own the Banks? » YoGoG.com

If the Banks Own the Senate, Why Don’t We Own the Banks? » YoGoG.com — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:33:08 +0000

[...] understand that Summers and Geithner are locked into the world view that thinks we cannot use this leverage without risking "systemic" effects — i.e., [...]

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:28:17 +0000

I appreciate the shout out to Bourdieu and other French thinkers who have contributed a lot of interesting ideas over the years. However I think this is a misapplication of Bourdieu to the milieu of banking. As Sid above comments, many of these bankers/masters of the universe are not really very interested in the content of culture or establishing that they know certain things about works of art. What suffices in the world of finance, as far as I understand it, is a certain clean, in many cases, handsome and athletic look (though not in all cases) and fairly good social manners which makes one “presentable” but there is some weighting against actually understanding and using the language of cultural criticism. As Sid mentions, these guys are often the Ivy league equivalent of frat boys.

This is not to say that these people, when they become rich enough, do not hire art historians to help them buy art or marry women who will guide them to accumulate the right kind of art work and raise their cultural level ever so slightly.

Bourdieu’s theory is far more applicable to European business circles where knowing something about culture is a plus. Here in the US, you’re considered to be a “wuss” if you are too interested in culture.

On the other hand, knowing something about spending and earning lots of money IS a cultural “ticket” into the inner sanctum, but without the “distinction” trappings that interested Bourdieu. If you can talk about building or buying your second or third or fourth home, that is more important than Monet.

Re: Geithner I think he comes from a similar social class that many of the Wall Street guys come from (upper middle class) but he is more serious than they are. On the other hand, he is not TOO serious and too much of a wonk. When he speaks he doesn’t communicate a decisive commitment to anything and he doesn’t really seem to be a broadly read or even a particularly interesting person. I think he is not motivated by “o’erweening” ambition but neither is he a slouch.

I think he is where he is because he is generally non-threatening.

By: GDP Growth Rates for Beginners « The Baseline Scenario

GDP Growth Rates for Beginners « The Baseline Scenario — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:05:46 +0000

[...] post about French sociology got a wide range of comments, ranging from “Without a doubt, your best post yet” to [...]

By: Outsider

Outsider — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:30:43 +0000

Dear Simon,

Just wondering when will you start advocating Volcker as a replacement for Geithner. Any insight about the likelihood of such a scenario, from previous IMF experience?

By: Sid

Sid — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:22:57 +0000

The problem with the idea of cultural capital as applied to the current banking/financial class is that I am not sure what the “culture” is that distinguishes the in-crowd from the unwashed masses.

Whatever it is, it sure as [expletive deleted] ain’t classical music or painting or mathematics or whatever. The average investment banker I know wouldn’t know Gauguin from Monet or Bach from Wagner if they were both played on period instruments.

It isn’t mathematical prowess, either. As a friend of mine who is a math and econ wiz from a working class background found this out when he got to meet some actual live New York investment bankers (from Goldman) for the first time.

My friend wanted to talk formulae. The bankers didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about, nor did they care. They wanted to party, do fat rails, and sleep with models, not explore Gaussian distributions or whatever.