Divested: Inequality in the Age of Finance, by Ken-Hou Lin and Megan Tobias Neely. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 232 pp.

IF 3.4 2区 哲学 Q2 BUSINESS
Kenneth Silver
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

F inancial markets may be mercurial in their own right, but Ken-Hou Lin and Megan Tobias Neely seem to view finance a bit like mercury itself: it can be useful, but it’s dangerous and makes for bad medicine. Though finance has been around for thousands of years, the book charts the recent rise and proliferation of finance and financial markets—primarily in the United States over the last forty years—and considers its connection to inequality in society. The book makes the case for thinking that this process of financialization of our economy is in some significant ways responsible for growing and deleterious inequality, directly opposing an ideology that takes access to finance to provide the solution to such inequality. Lin and Neely define financialization as “the wide-ranging reversal of the role of finance from a secondary, supportive activity to a principal driver of the economy” (10, emphasis original). They argue that such a reversal has occurred in the United States, and they set about to show this through the growth of the financial sector itself, the influence of finance within the corporate world, and the burden of debt and financial planning placed onto individual households. They maintain that financialization thus understood is bad in itself insofar as it mistakes the source of economic value, but it is also instrumentally bad insofar as these mechanisms needlessly exacerbate inequality. They argue that these processes unfold in a number of ways. Financial institutions extract economic rents far in excess of their value. Such institutions engage in predatory practices, complexifying their products while leveraging political power to lobby for less regulation. Meanwhile, corporations have been distracted from delivering value to customers and security to employees; instead, they are pressured to please shareholders and grow financial wings themselves. Meanwhile, households have become increasingly rackedwith debt, andwe are told that a failure to get out of debt signifies poor saving habits and a lack of financial literacy. For Lin and Neely, the 2008 financial crisis was a largely missed opportunity to confront and reform these practices. Instead, governments sought to restore the status quo, confronting “too big to fail” with acceptance and regulation to avoid failure. Lin and Neely maintain that, in so doing, we have collectively failed to challenge this central, overbearing, and self-serving role that finance plays in the economy. Taken together,Divested is a powerful catharsis of the current economic moment. It uses resources from history, economics, sociology, and beyond to craft a narrative for how finance came to have such a central place in our economy (and in our lives). And it is not shy in communicating that this is an unhealthy and ultimately 203 Book Reviews
《被剥夺:金融时代的不平等》,作者:林肯厚和梅根·托拜厄斯·尼利。纽约:牛津大学出版社,2020。232页。
金融市场本身可能是多变的,但林和梅根·托比亚斯·尼利似乎认为金融有点像汞本身:它可能有用,但它很危险,会成为良药。尽管金融已经存在了数千年,但这本书描绘了金融和金融市场最近的兴起和扩散——主要是在过去四十年里——并考虑了它与社会不平等的联系。这本书提出了这样一种观点,即我们经济的金融化进程在某些重要方面对日益严重的有害不平等负有责任,直接反对一种利用融资来解决这种不平等的意识形态。林和尼利将金融化定义为“金融的作用从次要的、支持性的活动转变为经济的主要驱动力”(10,重点原创)。他们认为,这种逆转在美国已经发生,他们开始通过金融部门本身的增长、金融在企业界的影响以及债务和财务规划给个人家庭带来的负担来证明这一点。他们坚持认为,这样理解的金融化本身就不好,因为它错误地反映了经济价值的来源,但在工具上也是不好的,因为这些机制不必要地加剧了不平等。他们认为,这些过程以多种方式展开。金融机构提取的经济租金远远超过其价值。这些机构从事掠夺性行为,使其产品复杂化,同时利用政治权力游说减少监管。与此同时,企业被分散了向客户提供价值和为员工提供安全保障的注意力;相反,他们迫于压力,要取悦股东,自己发展金融翅膀。与此同时,家庭债务负担越来越重,我们被告知,无法摆脱债务意味着不良的储蓄习惯和缺乏金融知识。对林和尼利来说,2008年的金融危机在很大程度上错失了应对和改革这些做法的机会。相反,各国政府试图恢复现状,面对“大到不能倒”的接受和监管,以避免失败。林和倪认为,这样做,我们共同未能挑战金融在经济中所扮演的中心、霸道和自私的角色。综合来看,Divested是当前经济时刻的有力宣泄。它利用历史、经济学、社会学等学科的资源,为金融如何在我们的经济(以及我们的生活)中占据如此重要的地位进行叙事。它毫不避讳地表示,这是一篇不健康的、最终是203篇书评
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来源期刊
CiteScore
6.20
自引率
10.00%
发文量
38
期刊介绍: Business Ethics Quarterly (BEQ) is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes theoretical and empirical research relevant to the ethics of business. Since 1991 this multidisciplinary journal has published articles and reviews on a broad range of topics, including the internal ethics of business organizations, the role of business organizations in larger social, political and cultural frameworks, and the ethical quality of market-based societies and market-based relationships. It recognizes that contributions to the better understanding of business ethics can come from any quarter and therefore publishes scholarship rooted in the humanities, social sciences, and professional fields.
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