Tag: warren buffett

All the Market's a Stage

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By George González

Placards at this weekend’s forced evacuation of “Occupy Boston,” as elsewhere in the country, defiantly read, “You Can’t Evict an Idea.” This kind of contention is key to understanding the sophisticated politics of the “Occupy Movement.”  The seeming contradiction between this notion and the original focus on the physical occupation of space exemplifies the genius of the movement.

In my previous post, “The Market, Warren Buffet and the Occupation of Wall Street,” I discussed how arguments which overstate the rationalist dimensions of economic life, whatever their political persuasion, are dangerous because they contribute to misunderstandings of  how economic power actually works in our daily lives. If we misdiagnose the stakes or misread the landscape, our social critique is impaired. I made the point that, in practice, Warren Buffett’s financial empire understands quite well the “emotional content of economics,” as one of my mentors, Bethany Moreton, nicely puts it.  Yet, his solutions for improving our economic lot are strangely rationalist given the multifaceted ways in which his company does business. What I mean by this is that his solution is formal, proceduralist and bureaucratic. It makes a policy appeal regarding tax law and commends legislative approaches. Legislative and legal activism that benefits from ten-point plans and specific policy goals are, no doubt, very important pragmatic dimensions of the work that needs to be done. Such work, however, does not begin to exhaust what is meant by the mantra Occupy Everything! nor begin to exhaust the sakes as many “occupiers” understand them. Continue Reading →

All the Market’s a Stage

Posted on by

By George González

Placards at this weekend’s forced evacuation of “Occupy Boston,” as elsewhere in the country, defiantly read, “You Can’t Evict an Idea.” This kind of contention is key to understanding the sophisticated politics of the “Occupy Movement.”  The seeming contradiction between this notion and the original focus on the physical occupation of space exemplifies the genius of the movement.

In my previous post, “The Market, Warren Buffet and the Occupation of Wall Street,” I discussed how arguments which overstate the rationalist dimensions of economic life, whatever their political persuasion, are dangerous because they contribute to misunderstandings of  how economic power actually works in our daily lives. If we misdiagnose the stakes or misread the landscape, our social critique is impaired. I made the point that, in practice, Warren Buffett’s financial empire understands quite well the “emotional content of economics,” as one of my mentors, Bethany Moreton, nicely puts it.  Yet, his solutions for improving our economic lot are strangely rationalist given the multifaceted ways in which his company does business. What I mean by this is that his solution is formal, proceduralist and bureaucratic. It makes a policy appeal regarding tax law and commends legislative approaches. Legislative and legal activism that benefits from ten-point plans and specific policy goals are, no doubt, very important pragmatic dimensions of the work that needs to be done. Such work, however, does not begin to exhaust what is meant by the mantra Occupy Everything! nor begin to exhaust the sakes as many “occupiers” understand them. Continue Reading →

The Market, Warren Buffett, and the Occupation of Wall Street

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The power of consumer society works precisely by blurring the distinction between the street and the interests of financial markets.

By George González

“Do You Really Think 3000 People Are Here at This Park Today to Make a Point About Nothing Important?”–Sign written by one of the protesters at Occupy Wall Street in New York City

In his national debate-stirring NY Times op-ed, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” Warren Buffett calls for “shared sacrifice” in American public life. Specifically, he argues that current tax codes allow the “super rich,” a group he certainly belongs to, to pay into the public trust at much lower rates than the working and middle classes, who are increasingly squeezed by unemployment and underemployment. Buffett identifies this one important aspect of the disparities he, I and many Americans bemoan: the fact that income produced by wage labor is taxed at higher rates than are the financial gains made by those who “make money from money” or even off wage laborers.

As an ethnographer who tends to understand practices and ideas as dimensions of the human experience within the context of specific life-worlds (or what some anthropologists call cosmologies), the question of what causes a society to value some kinds of labor over others is exceedingly complex. I would look to social practices—not just normative ideas—in an effort to tackle such a question. Continue Reading →