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Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World without Redemption
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 conception of 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
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 conception of 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
392 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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85 people want to read
About the author
Mark C. Taylor
53 books35 followersMark C. Taylor, Ph.D. (Religious Studies, Harvard University, 1973; B.A., Wesleyan University, 1968), is a philosopher of religion who chaired the Department of Religion at Columbia University 2007–2015. Previously, he was Cluett Professor of Humanities at Williams College (Williamstown, Massachusetts), where he began his teaching career in 1973.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 17, 2022
Overview:
Economists are influenced by the culture that they come from. Economic ideas are part of the cultural and religious framework of their era. A mutual interdependence between culture, religion, and economics that creates a range of ways that people can interact with each other. With different aspects in either culture, religion, and economics bringing different formations of the interactions.
God and gold function the same in the economy, as they provide a firm foundation that anchor religious, moral, and economic values. They provide certainty and securities in a world without them. Crises appear when the foundation disappears. Religion did not disappear, it was transformed. God has been transformed into the market, for the market was claimed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Hard to tell whether religion or markets produce something or nothing, for they are confidence games. They are beliefs about others, beliefs about potentials, rather than the actual capabilities. Faith in their foundations. Confidence games that frequently fall apart under the weight of their reality.
Markets were transformed by technological changes. Different strategies were needed to deal with how people interact with the technological changes. Economic and technological transformations were related to broader cultural changes. Cultural and economic processes had feedback loops, as they are mutually determined. An example comes from the art world, as the art world changed from being under patronage to supporting themselves with their work, their work has changed. Their economic situations changed how art is performed.
Caveats?
To reference the various ways economics is tied to culture, required references to various philosophical, religious, and cultural understandings. The book can be more difficult to read without a background in these various understandings. Possible to make different connections with different references, or knowing more details of the references given.
Economists are influenced by the culture that they come from. Economic ideas are part of the cultural and religious framework of their era. A mutual interdependence between culture, religion, and economics that creates a range of ways that people can interact with each other. With different aspects in either culture, religion, and economics bringing different formations of the interactions.
God and gold function the same in the economy, as they provide a firm foundation that anchor religious, moral, and economic values. They provide certainty and securities in a world without them. Crises appear when the foundation disappears. Religion did not disappear, it was transformed. God has been transformed into the market, for the market was claimed to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Hard to tell whether religion or markets produce something or nothing, for they are confidence games. They are beliefs about others, beliefs about potentials, rather than the actual capabilities. Faith in their foundations. Confidence games that frequently fall apart under the weight of their reality.
Markets were transformed by technological changes. Different strategies were needed to deal with how people interact with the technological changes. Economic and technological transformations were related to broader cultural changes. Cultural and economic processes had feedback loops, as they are mutually determined. An example comes from the art world, as the art world changed from being under patronage to supporting themselves with their work, their work has changed. Their economic situations changed how art is performed.
Caveats?
To reference the various ways economics is tied to culture, required references to various philosophical, religious, and cultural understandings. The book can be more difficult to read without a background in these various understandings. Possible to make different connections with different references, or knowing more details of the references given.
June 6, 2008
Phenomenal overview of the relationship between divinity and money. It begins with a history of money, an examination of the interrelationships money creates, examining cash, art, architecture and the internet. It unpacks how religion is at the heart of the trust we put in financial markets. Finance is a poker game we seek to keep playing, for eternity.
February 27, 2013
I really found this book fascinating as a combination of religion, economy and technology. Allows for something for any kind of intellectual reader.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews