Book review: La “vía chilena” al socialismo (1970–1973): un itinerario geohistórico de la Unidad Popular en el sistema-mundo

Abstract

of ignorance. Indeed, that scholarship’s themes and sensibilities are evident throughout CWB. The book is not only comparative in mood but goes beyond comparison per se to frame a tableau in which nation-states help constitute, but do not themselves determine, the space of interaction. In design and theory, CWB thus defies the “methodological nationalism” that still hounds sociology and is among its most durable sources of disciplinary ignorance. To be sure, Harrington’s subject matter itself calls for such a de-centering. Still, by adopting (in practice, if not in name) the “flat ontology” touted by some geographers, Harrington puts nation-states, markets, families, and professions on the same analytical plane. This renders visible all manner of interaction among these social forms that might otherwise stay obscured by our tired “matryoshka doll” imaginary, in which nation-states are thought to “contain,” in nested sequence, these “smaller scale” actors. Harrington’s book is a spur to the imagination, prompting readers to wonder what other insights, in their own research, might also be rescued from disciplinary ignorance by following her lead. More concretely, CWB is a study of ignorance. Rather than treat states and professions as presumptive knowledge-producers, Harrington shows how wealth managers exploit, and embellish, structural affordances in the international state system to produce ignorance for clients’ benefit. She thus unmasks their ignorance-making as a dynamic social force that leaves vexing absences in its wake, notably, addled indifference where we might instead see opposition to a growing class of transnational arbitrageurs. Along the way, CWB beautifully braids three strains of ignorance scholarship. First and second, it demonstrates that ignorance can result both from the “strategic” efforts of elite actors (e.g. McGoey, 2012, 2019) and as an unintended product of complex social systems (e.g. Frickel, 2014; Suryanarayanan and Kleinman, 2016). Third, in tracking how wealth managers occlude the sources, size, and composition of clients’ riches, Harrington taps an older lineage (Simmel, 1906) that posits an inherent link between the money form, secrecy, and the corrosion of accountability. Students of political-economy, scholars of professions and expertise, and sociologists of law, especially those of a comparative bent, to name a few, will find much to inspire them, methodologically and thematically.