Awash in a sea of data that seems to have no meaning and bombarded
by images and sounds transmitted from around the globe 24/7, people
are no longer sure what is real and what is fake. Artists recycle
ads in their paintings and businesses use images of artists in
their ads; politicians mount campaigns based on hit films; and
bankers make billions trading incomprehensible financial products
backed by nothing more than abstract figures and signs.
In "Confidence Games," Mark C. Taylor considers the implications of
these developments for our digital and increasingly virtual
economy. According to Taylor, money and markets do not exist in a
vacuum but grow in a profoundly cultural medium, reflecting and in
turn shaping their world. To understand the recent changes in our
economy, it is not enough to analyze the impact of politics and
technology--one must consider the influence of art, philosophy, and
religion as well.
Bringing John Calvin, G. W. F. Hegel, and Adam Smith to Wall Street
by way of Las Vegas, Taylor first explores the historical and
psychological origins of money, the importance of religious beliefs
and practices for the emergence of markets, and the unexpected role
of religion and art in the classical understanding of economics. He
then moves to an account of economic developments during the past
four decades, exploring the dawn of our new information age, the
growing virtuality of money and markets, and the complexity of the
networks by which monetary value is now negotiated.
Returning full circle to a version of the market first proposed by
Adam Smith when he used theology and aesthetics to rethink
economics, "Confidence Games" closes with a plea for a conceptionof
life that embraces uncertainty and insecurity as signs of the
openness of the future. Like religion and economics, life is a
confidence game in which the challenge is not to find redemption
but to learn to live without it.
"Before the global credit system began its collapse in 2007,
Mark Taylor had connected the dots between increasingly complex
financial instruments and larger cultural forces. Anyone who wants
to understand the disappearing foundation of our financial markets
needs to read this book immediately."--Michael Lewitt, editor, "The
HCM Market Letter""Beyond simply dealing with 'money and markets, '
"Confidence Games" is a fascinating and wide-ranging tour of modern
and postmodern ideas and conditions from Aristotle to Nietzsche,
from Wall Street to Las Vegas."--Craig Bay, "Journal of Markets
& Morality"
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