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Ho, who worked at an investment bank herself, argues that bankers' approaches to financial markets and corporate America are inseparable from the structures and strategies of their workplaces. Her ethnographic analysis of those workplaces is filled with the voices of stressed first-year associates, overworked and alienated analysts, undergraduates eager to be hired, and seasoned managing directors. Recruited from elite universities as "the best and the brightest," investment bankers are socialized into a world of high risk and high reward. They are paid handsomely, with the understanding that they may be let go at any time. Their workplace culture and networks of privilege create the perception that job insecurity builds character, and employee liquidity results in smart, efficient business. Based on this culture of liquidity and compensation practices tied to profligate deal-making, Wall Street investment bankers reshape corporate America in their own image. Their mission is the creation of shareholder value, but Ho demonstrates that their practices and assumptions often produce crises instead. By connecting the values and actions of investment bankers to the construction of markets and the restructuring of U.S. corporations, Liquidated reveals the particular culture of Wall Street often obscured by triumphalist readings of capitalist globalization.
Author: Karen Ho
ISBN-10: 0822345994
ISBN-13: 9780822345992
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 07/13/2009
Pages: 392
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.00d
Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/08/2009 pg. 38
Choice 02/01/2010
Karen Ho is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Minnesota.
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