Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea

@article{ART001553513},
author={ 이완기 },
title={Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea},
journal={담론201},
issn={1598-1118},
year={2011},
volume={14},
number={2},
pages={105-135},
doi={10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005},
url={http://dx.doi.org/10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005}

TY - JOUR
AU - 이완기
TI - Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea
T2 - 담론201
PY - 2011
VL - 14
IS - 2
PB - 한국사회역사학회
SP - 105-135
SN - 1598-1118
AB - This paper, in an attempt to approach finance from a cultural perspective,investigates the cultural logic of financialization in terms of (re)configuration of temporality and (re)presentation of information, both of which are, as it upholds, critically undertaken and maintained by the operativity of investment banking which functions, following Bourdieu, as “the sign of wealth” in our times. It is time for cultural theorists and practitioners to revisit finance as the set of epistemic culture that modulates epistemological and ontological contexts affecting the actors’ cognition and behaviors in value production and realization. Financialization here, is suggested as a disinformation campaign through which cognitive dissonance of financial mania is effectively contained, concealing its damaging effects and thus valorizing the inherent bubble mechanism as the legitimate way of value production and circulation. Sustaining and amplifying transactional orientation of investment banking among the actors in the financial markets, the financial system seams the cognitive dissonance through its operativity of information for the construction of financial reality stimulating beliefs and guiding action without which financial integrity, credit relations, and transactional orientation cannot be sustained. To reveal the actual aspects of cognitive dissonance and its overcoming operation by the cultural performativity of the financial economic, this article first proposes that from the perspective of general economy, financialization, which is critically motivated and generated through the engine of the investment banking model and technique, is detrimental to the growth of the nation’s economy. Here, from the perspective of cultural performativity, the transactional orientation of investment banking is analyzed as the system of temporal articulation of human relationships in which a series of transient combinations of human resources, experience, knowledge, and information is encoded and implemented for a transaction, which thus incorporates other forms of value production into its rhythm. Demonstrating the process of widespread establishment of investment banking in commercial banking, non‐financial corporations, and individual actors through major financial shake‐ups after the Korean financial crisis, this article shows how the code of investment banking becomes the symbolic as well as the material code functioning as the sign of authority and communication in motivating the process of financialization. In the accentuation of financialization, as the process accompanying the bubble mechanism with its transactional orientation as the legitimate process in realization of dominant value, this paper finally suggests that financial capitalism as the set of epistemic operation that overcomes the cognitive dissonance with its operativity of information. The collective information produced by financial narrators transcoding the dissonance into the consonance grounds the field of cognitive operation as the cultural logic of financialization beyond the economic diagnosis and thus functions as the source of cognition and action for actors.
KW - Culture, Finance, Financialization, Cultural Logic of Financialization,Epistemic Culture, Investment Banking, Transactional Orientation,Temporality, Information, Disinformation, Korean Financial Crisis
DO - 10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005
ER -

이완기 (2011). Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea. 담론201, 14( 2), 105- 135.

이완기 . 2011, “Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea”, 담론201, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 105-135. Available from: doi:10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005

이완기 “Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea” 담론201 14.2 pp. 105-135 (2011): 105.

이완기 . Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea 담론201 [Internet]. 2011; 14( 2), : 105-135. Available from: doi:10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005

이완기 . “Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea” 담론201 14, no.2 (2011): 105-135. doi: 10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005

홈 권호 목록 논문 목록 논문 상세

Culture and Finance - Cultural Logic of Financialization and the Performativity of Financial Crisis in Korea

담론201

약어 : -

2011, vol.14, no.2, pp.105 - 135

DOI : 10.17789/discou.2011.14.2.005

발행기관 : 한국사회역사학회

연구분야 : 사회학

이완기¹

¹Centre for Cultural Studies, University of London

인용한 논문 수 : 1 서지 간략 보기

초록

This paper, in an attempt to approach finance from a cultural perspective,investigates the cultural logic of financialization in terms of (re)configuration of temporality and (re)presentation of information, both of which are, as it upholds, critically undertaken and maintained by the operativity of investment banking which functions, following Bourdieu, as “the sign of wealth” in our times. It is time for cultural theorists and practitioners to revisit finance as the set of epistemic culture that modulates epistemological and ontological contexts affecting the actors’ cognition and behaviors in value production and realization. Financialization here, is suggested as a disinformation campaign through which cognitive dissonance of financial mania is effectively contained, concealing its damaging effects and thus valorizing the inherent bubble mechanism as the legitimate way of value production and circulation. Sustaining and amplifying transactional orientation of investment banking among the actors in the financial markets, the financial system seams the cognitive dissonance through its operativity of information for the construction of financial reality stimulating beliefs and guiding action without which financial integrity, credit relations, and transactional orientation cannot be sustained. To reveal the actual aspects of cognitive dissonance and its overcoming operation by the cultural performativity of the financial economic, this article first proposes that from the perspective of general economy, financialization, which is critically motivated and generated through the engine of the investment banking model and technique, is detrimental to the growth of the nation’s economy. Here, from the perspective of cultural performativity, the transactional orientation of investment banking is analyzed as the system of temporal articulation of human relationships in which a series of transient combinations of human resources, experience, knowledge, and information is encoded and implemented for a transaction, which thus incorporates other forms of value production into its rhythm. Demonstrating the process of widespread establishment of investment banking in commercial banking, non‐financial corporations, and individual actors through major financial shake‐ups after the Korean financial crisis, this article shows how the code of investment banking becomes the symbolic as well as the material code functioning as the sign of authority and communication in motivating the process of financialization. In the accentuation of financialization, as the process accompanying the bubble mechanism with its transactional orientation as the legitimate process in realization of dominant value, this paper finally suggests that financial capitalism as the set of epistemic operation that overcomes the cognitive dissonance with its operativity of information. The collective information produced by financial narrators transcoding the dissonance into the consonance grounds the field of cognitive operation as the cultural logic of financialization beyond the economic diagnosis and thus functions as the source of cognition and action for actors.

키워드

Culture, Finance, Financialization, Cultural Logic of Financialization,Epistemic Culture, Investment Banking, Transactional Orientation,Temporality, Information, Disinformation, Korean Financial Crisis

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