Culture is hot in financial regulation. Is this a good thing?

Last week I gave the keynote lecture at the Canadian Society of Socio-Cultural Anthropology annual meeting in Victoria, Canada. I talked about the current fascination with “market culture” the “culture of Wall Street,” debt as an alternative to capital, and all kinds of anthropological and sociological paradigms for understanding markets.  Many anthropologists and sociologists of markets seem to feel that this is their ticket to fame and fortune.  There is a new market for culture in the financial markets! However my experience among lawyers and regulators has taught me that when these people use the term “culture” they mean something completely different from what anthropologists mean.  They mean, whatever economics cannot explain.  So anthropologists and sociologists make a mistake when they jump in and offer to collaborate with financiers on a culturalist analysis. Instead, I argued, we would be better off asking why or how economics fails and what other opportunities this failure opens up, for regulators and for anthropologists.

 

The full paper will be coming out in American Anthropologist in a few months.