The Social Life of Financial Derivatives: Markets, Risk, and Time

416 Pages·2017·2.086 MB·English

by  Edward LiPuma

The Social Life
of Financial Derivatives
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The
Social Life
of Financial
Derivatives
Markets, Risk, and Time
Edward LiPuma
duke university press
Durham and London
2017
© 2017 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Ameri ca on acid- free paper ∞
Designed by Matthew Tauch
Typeset in Whitman by Westchester Publishing Service
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 9780822369561 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 9780822369561 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 9780822372837 (ebook)
Cover art: Design and illustration by Matthew Tauch
For my daughter, Laura; my wife, Susan;
and my friend and inspiration, Randy Martin
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Contents
acknowl edgments ix
Prefacing a Theory of the Derivative 1
Chapter 1 Originating the Derivative 27
Chapter 2 Social Theory and the Market for
the Production of Financial Knowledge 81
Chapter 3 Outline of a Social Theory of Finance 116
Chapter 4 Temporality and the Financial Markets 144
Chapter 5 Theorizing the Financial Markets Socially 170
Chapter 6 Rituality and the Production of Financial Markets 199
Chapter 7 The Speculative Ethos 229
Chapter 8 The Social Habitus of Financial Work 267
Chapter 9 The Social Dimensions of Black- Scholes 304
Chapter 10 Derivatives and Wealth 336
notes 355
references 389
index 399
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Acknowl edgments
I am entirely responsible for the text but not for the ideas. What follows, both
theoretically and thematically, is the ongoing result of my participation in
the Cultures of Finance Group, which as I will relate was far more than what
academics normally mean by a group. What defines and animates the finance
group is an intellectual entwinement of the deepest order. Each idea is forged
in and through its involvement with the ideas of the other members, such
that every concept would have had a dif er ent and lesser shape if developed
separately. Incorporated into the root of each new idea or theme are the vision
and insights of the group. It is an assemblage that cannot be deconstructed or
decomposed into its original elem ents because the proc ess of incorporation
centers on what can only be called a dialectical fusion. From Benjamin Lee, my
collaborator and friend, I continue to learn the radiant value of thinking across
the grain, more relationally than I would do on my own; from Randy Martin
I learned the importance of ideas as a form of play and to never abandon the
po liti cal uptake and power of social thought; from Robert Meister I learned a
new way of thinking about finance some fifteen or so degrees removed from
my usual real ity; from Arjun Appadurai I learned the importance of keeping in
contact with my anthropological roots; and from Robert Wosnitzer I learned
that for theory to stay grounded it c an’t stray too far from practice. I would
like to thank my wonderful friend Moishe Postone, whose theorization of
production- centered capitalism was the ground I pushed against to create an
exposition of circulatory capital. In the end as in the beginning, good theory is
like the neutron of an atom, whose existence and value depends on its engage-
ment with the protons of practice and the intellectual enlightenment from the
encircling electrons. For collaborations at their highest constitute the most
majestic form of plagiarism.