Comments for The Memory Bank

Comment on Room for responsibility in finance: a response to Tijo Salverda by Keith Hart

Keith Hart — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:47:32 +0000

Thanks, Nils. You have hit the crux of the difficulty we face in confronting neoliberalism. Contemporary rent-seeking cloaks itself in the ideology of classical liberalism, modified by a sort of robber baron self-congratulation of Gilded Age vintage. The matter is further complicated by use of the term "liberal" in the US to designate those who favour New Deal-type public spending. But in my view the main source of political confusion lies in the late 19th century collapse of the distinction between real and artificial persons in law when it comes to business corporations (but not churches, political parties and the rest). I explored this issue in The Hit Man's Dilemma (2005). This leads to such absurdities as the US Supreme Court refusing to limit corporate political spending on the grounds that it infringes their "human rights"! It paves the way for a world society in which the only effective citizens are corporations whose wealth, power and longevity is so much greater than a human being's. Human entities are also less single-minded in their purposes. This is one reason why I like Dean Baker's The End of Loser Liberalism which accuses the left of buying the free market ideology of the rentier class rather than attacking its usurpation of the state for self-enrichment. This may be the Achilles heel of the rich, but we clearly have to go some way yet before we will take them on effectively.

Comment on Room for responsibility in finance: a response to Tijo Salverda by Nils

Nils — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:01:32 +0000

Wonderful post, Keith. This post is also a perfect encapsulation of my own intellectual trajectory — from studying the classics of European social theory with Marty Jay as an undergraduate, to writing a dissertation/book on the rise of the Parsonian hegemony and its application to policy questions in the postwar years, to my postgraduate professional work considering the geopolitical ramifications of the post-1970s reversion to naked Victorian utilitarianism and pervasive politically-connected rent-seeking.

I would consider one paradox, however: although we live in an age of unprecedented political rent-seeking, the ideology of the rent-seekers (or rent-attainers, anyway) is of stalwart individualism. In other words, they do not recognize themselves for what they are. Guys like Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Diamond (to say nothing of the Koch brothers) don’t recognize themselves as political rent-seekers, but rather as a rapacious capitalists making their money DESPITE the best efforts of government. The false consciousness of the elites on this front is pretty striking. I would submit it may also be their signal weakness.

Comment on Reviews of the Book by Louis Oziak

Louis Oziak — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:42:03 +0000

Happiness

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/62/88/37/PDF/wp201134.pdf

Comment on Keith Hart by Putting people first » The first Informal Economy Symposium in Barcelona – October 12, 2012

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:58:03 +0000

[...] Keith Hart (Anthropologist who coined the term Informal Sector) [...]

Comment on The politics, pragmatics and promise of money by Hugh Barnard

Hugh Barnard — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:17:04 +0000

Thanks for this Keith. We met briefly about five years ago. I’ve devoted a lot of my time, since leaving conventional finance in 2003 to deep financial reform. To me, money is ‘only’ technology, either at the level of paper tokens used in Asian food centres and villages, scratched tallies of amounts of grain or all the bank/Wall Street/city computers. However technology isn’t neutral, however much we may repeat that mantra, so the ‘challenge’ is to fashion methods of exchange and value store that serves the planet [that's where we live, if we destroy it, this discourse is unnecessary] and all of us.

I’m not particularly interested in exact equality, it’s illusory, I am interested in narrower gaps as in the recent book The Spirit Level. My view is classically scientific, we just have to experiment with alternative and complementary currencies until the ‘right’ fire is lit from the tinder. Of course, the ‘wrong’ fire may be lit, I think bitcoin is probably an example as are the local currencies that are 100% convertible and pegged to the national currency. However, as you have said, somewhere above, all these serve at least as thought experiments and educational exercises. Onwards and upwards, at least that’s what we would hope!

Comment on Money in an Unequal World by Money as Social Memory: Who Holds It? «Collective Conversations Collective Conversations

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 05:44:43 +0000

[...] Hart’s book, “Money in an Unequal World,” takes an account of where 5,000 years of agricultural civilization have brought us and comes to the [...]

Comment on The informal economy: a story of ethnography untold by Everyday Africa and the theory of informality | Project Africa @ The New School

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:23:13 +0000

[...] unregulated urban commerce might generate sustained development in the coming half-century” (Hart, 2011). This conclusion advocates for a renewed look of the ‘unregulated urban commerce’, one that is [...]

Comment on Manifesto for a human economy by Essay of the Day: Keith Hart’s Manifesto for a Human Economy | P2P Foundation's blog

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:22:37 +0000

[...] Excerpted from Keith Hart: [...]

Comment on Manifesto for a human economy by P2P Foundation's blog » Blog Archive » Essay of the Day: Keith Hart’s Manifesto for a Human Economy

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 13:05:31 +0000

[...] Excerpted from Keith Hart: [...]

Comment on Two Lectures on African Development by Just a thought « Imaginary Ordinary

Just a thought « Imaginary Ordinary — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:15:56 +0000

[...] just. Even though it’s already on the internet on his website in the second of his Two Lectures on African Development. Read that, by the way, if you have [...]